In my Kindergarten classroom, my students played an interesting math game during centers which included shapes and colors. The students would get into partners and then spin a paper clip to get a color, and then spin again to get a shape. Then the students are given tiles with different shapes and colors that they are supposed to sort according to what they spun. The students seemed to enjoy the game and were involved while playing it. But the game seemed to be way too easy for some students and they became bored easily. I did not see how the struggling students responded to the game.
Some questions I have:
1. How could you make this game more challenging for students who have already mastered it?
2. Do the students ever draw their own shapes, or do they just identify them at this age?
3. How do the struggling math students perform during this activity?
I think that the task can be more challenging if the students were to draw the shapes instead of just sorting them. But I would have to ask my teacher if this is a skill they could accomplish. I do not know if they are able to draw them yet, or they are just becoming familiar with them right now. I would also like to work with the struggling students during centers to see if they understand their shapes and are able to sort them correctly. If they are successful with this task, then the class needs more challenging tasks to allow them to think more about mathematical concepts.
I would also think about what mathematical concepts students are being encouraged to think about during this task...there are many possibilities, just from looking at your picture: shapes, colors, and even incipient concepts of fractions. Again, students won't be able to think about all of these concepts at once, so a lot depends on how the teacher sets up the task and what learning goal is set, what she determines to be the big idea of the lesson.
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