Kindergarten Math

I had my first ever direct experience with Kindergarten, and it was an awesome experience. The teacher was very active and kept the class very busy and mobile. Math was taught in an amazingly integrated way, and the kids just ate it up.

Also, she let the kids dictate the schedule of the day. One said that they wanted to play board games, so they did and she let them decide that it would be their new activity to start the day with. The games were very mathematical in nature, involving counting, pattern recognition, sequence awareness, etc.

She was riffing on the idea of Whole Brain Learning, which I have thought is interesting, and am now very interested in. A video of this technique (more extreme) is available here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yygIwC3PSvk

The students loved it, and it was fairly effortless for the teacher. She puts out a huge amount of energy, but it means that the kids literally listen to EVERYTHING she says. She incorporated a huge amount of singing, dancing and change of position into all activities, to the point where students were too busy to get distracted.

The Smart Board was also used, and the kids were actively encouraged to talk about relevant experiences with a partner after being exposed to each new concept.