All Talk!

Hey Kinder Friends,

Right now we are ALL talk! Yep, just yick yacking all the time! But I bet you could hear a pin drop when we are Number Talking! I swear it is the most peaceful time of the day. Kids are so darn busy working on their hand signals that not a mouth moves...Ahhh, just those few short moments. You just have to love it. No waving hands in the air. No grunting. Not a single noise until they are asked to respond... And you can bet they are on their toes because we are picking up the pace pretty darn quick and flashing images a little faster and the Number Talks routine is moving right along.

As we have eased into the recording of our thoughts we began with smaller numbers. It was my hope that by this time the children would be able to express seeing images in more flexible ways. As we worked through a few scattered arrangements today I could tell it was going to happen so I was glad that we were recording our thoughts already.

This also gave us a chance to practice the signal for seeing things the same way as another person. Again, the signals keep them so busy you could hear a pin drop!

Just like me, many people have asked about when the proper time is to move on... My teacher gut was kicking in today and it was obvious that it is now time to dig a little deeper. We are all using our hand signals with just a little prompting, we are all using our sentence stems when responding, most of us are instantly recognizing arrangements to five and we are now beginning to see the representations in different ways. And as we continue to share our thinking we are starting to notice more about number flexibility. WHEW!

Our Number Talks last about 5-10 minutes. These images and recordings took about 10 minutes. They were begging for more! Until next time friends...make everyday count!