Kindergarten Addition- Jamie Blankenship

This week in my classroom the students were practicing counting as a class.  The teacher had all of the students sit at the carpet and face the overhead screen.  Then, she used two dice to provide the numbers the students had to add. One of the dice had dots on it and the other dice had numbers on it.  The teacher would roll each dice under the overhead and then ask the students what the answer was.  Below is an example where one of the students answered when the teacher rolled a number 2 and a dotted 6. 

Teacher: “Okay Vincent, what is the first number?” As she points to the dotted number.

Vincent: Comes up to the overhead screen and points as he counts the dots. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.”

Teacher: “Good job. What number is this?” She points to the other dice.

Vincent: Pauses. “Two.”

Teacher: “So, if you add two and six, what do you get?”

Vincent: He holds out two fingers and then puts up the other fingers one at a time until he counts six more. “Eight.”

Teacher: “Good job Vincent. Did everyone see how Vincent got eight?”

By analyzing this example, I think that Vincent has a great idea about counting up. He starts with the number two and then adds six more fingers, which were represented in the addition problem by the dots on the dice.  Although he did not choose to start counting with the larger number, his ability to come up with the correct answer still shows that he understands how to join these two numbers together.