“Mathematics in the Kindergarten programme builds on children’s desire to make sense of their world, and helps them develop and demonstrate their mathematical understanding.”

“Young children use mathematics intuitively and develop their understanding of mathematics through their individual approaches to learning, as well as though their prior experience of their linguistic, family, cultural, and community backgrounds.” (Taken from The Full-Day Early Learning: Kindergarten Program, 2010-2011)The JK children have started to investigate the different types of graphing.

Questions:

• “What do you know about graphing?”
• “Have you heard the mathematical term before?”

E. shared that “It might have something to do with photographs?” A very clever observation, as we had pictures of a cat, a dog and a goldfish out on the carpet, selected to ‘graph’ with. What struck me was the connection that E. had made not only to the ‘photographs’, but also that the spoken word of ‘photograph’ has the word ‘graph’ in it.I shared ‘new knowledge’ with the children about ‘graphing’ such as:

• The children and I were going to see what was our chosen favourite animal.
•  The JK’s most favourite animal might not be amongst the photographs, but a ‘choice’ was needed to answer the question that would be asked.
• Information would be collected and gathered and dialogued about, after all of the children had made their ‘choice’.

We then proceeded to the task.

The children were asked this question:

• “What is your favourite animal: the dog, the cat, or the goldfish?”

After each child had ‘chosen’ their ‘favourite’ animal, well thought out decisions and choices decided upon, the discussions and findings began. It was established from the graphing with stones and the photographs:

• The dog and the goldfish have 6 stones each
• The cat have 2 stones
• The word ‘tie’ was shared and explained by S. who knew much about the word ‘tie’ and what it meant “to tie in a race”
• Which animal was the least favourite in JK?

It was agreed that we had lots to learn, ‘new knowledge’ about Graphing.

The children will be able to:

• Extend their thinking
•  ‘To put a mark on the graph’
•  To examine the graph
• Determine the most popular and least popular choices

Graphing curriculum connections for Kindergarten:

• DM 5.2  Collect objects and data and make representations of their observations, using concrete graphs
• DM 5.3  Respond to and pose questions about data collection and graphs
• DM 5.4  Use mathematical language in informal discussions to describe probability