A Tree Of 24!



Hey Kinder Friends,

I think we all hit the ground running since we got back from our fall break. We have had a lot to accomplish and squeeze into a week full of learning and maybe a little fun. This week as we have been talking about counting and comparing greater numbers I remembered this simple Christmas tree project from the past. With just a few snips of some scissors, these trees were ready to go. All I needed were some stickers and we were all set. What is great about this little project is that anyone can be successful and it gave me a chance to talk to the children about what strategy they would use to complete their decorated tree to twenty. I was able to listen and ask some clarifying questions as the children worked to complete the project independently.



It was interesting to notice the different approaches the children took to completing the project. Some children counted the stickers out before they even put them on the tree. Some children placed them on the tree in an organized arrangement and some children counted, recounted and even counted on. It was interesting to hear the different methods not only being discussed between the children but I gained a lot of information from their justifications of their strategy choice. Because this activity was worked on as the children had finished up some other work, I was able to observe and listen to the children as they came to the table a few at a time. We were able to listen to a child work through his discovery of having too many decorations on the tree, how he figured that out and what his solution to the problem was.

After all, what is really wrong with a tree of 24? 



Nothing really... It is the fact that he figured out it was 24 because he applied a strategy to double-check his count to figure that he had more than twenty. And he must have proposed about four different solutions before asking...
"What is really wrong with a tree of 24?"
Nothing...just nothing!
And who can argue with that?