The purpose of this professional learning is for teachers to view and reflect on an example of how one teacher embeds literacy and numeracy in kindergarten.
Video transcript
Sonya Nicol
Kindergarten teacher
The advantage of embedding numeracy and literacy into our planning process is it happens based on the children’s interests and the learning is coming from them. The way we allow children choices is I put up a few laminated pictures and then we have a think about what they might like out for the next two weeks, and then we try a voting system.
Teaching scenario
Sonya
We always have the watering can. So let’s have a look and see which one are we going to have — what’s got the biggest number?
Child 1
Ten.
Sonya
Ten.
Child 2
Mrs Nichol, my brother is already seven.
Sonya
Is he? Did you see his number up there? I thought so. We had a 10 …
Child 2
My brother ...
Sonya
... and a seven.
Child 2
... is not six anymore.
Child 3
Mine is … my brother is 10.
Sonya
Well that was his number and then we had Mackenzie’s brother’s number down here
End of teaching scenario
Sonya Nicol
The voting process also allows us to build in some numeracy and literacy. When the children vote we count, and we put the number up on the board. So we’ve got a numeral up there. Also, which is the biggest number? Because that’s what wins — the majority. We also write up the words as we go too. So next to what we vote for we will write the words on the whiteboard as well. So they’re all opportunities to build in numeracy and literacy.
So this morning when we put some numbers up, some of the children commented that one of their brothers was 10, and somebody else said their brother was seven, so we had a little talk about those numbers. So as we go, we’re using opportunities to build in literacy and numeracy.
Other people also commented … other children commented on the letters that words started with, and some were starting to recognise some of those
The way we will build numeracy and literacy into our outside and indoor space is we will look at opportunities in the shop that we made. So the children will make shopping lists. We’ve made some signs this morning. We’ll label some of the food.
And numeracy, we’ll also do lots of counting with the money — the pretend money. This morning they were sorting the coins into all the different trays in the coin tray. Then we’ll look at the numerals on the coin and talk about how much things cost, how much change I’ve got to have, ringing things up on the cash register, making more signs for the shops.
They are recognising the numbers and the numerals and the letters. So rather than us sitting down for the day and saying today is ‘s’, we’re going to talk about everything ‘s’, instead we found the word ‘sausages’ because that’s what we were making for the camping. So it’s much more interesting for them, and it’s come from their interests.
See also
- Last updated:
- 19 April 2024
