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Hello!

Happy mid-August. We’re riding the ups and downs of back-to-school right there with you.

Here’s our news: We are in the initial stages of starting a hub over at the Curious Learning Collective where teachers can go for research-backed, classroom-tested materials that center inquiry and play and children.

It’s a place for teachers to come together, share ideas, ask questions, and feel connected. We offer resources, support, and tools to help teachers support all learners and make learning purposeful and joyful.

Someday, we’ll have a platform where teachers can pay teachers (wink) for their materials and resources, too, but for now you can imagine that we’re Ben & Jerry making ice cream in their garage. We’ve got the vision, we’ve got the recipe, we just need… you! And apparently now we need ice cream….

Come join us.

You can also follow us on instagram and we’ll keep posting here, too, of course.

Onward,

Christine & Kristi

Really we know all children need play. The research is clear. The outcomes are clear. We know we don’t need to convince you.

But…. we do need to convince some folks and we do need to help teachers who are doing their best to keep play in K (and 1st and 2nd and 3rd).

We’re on a mission this August to help teachers set up for a year of play and curiosity-driven learning.

Over on instagram (yes, we know we’re educational dinosaurs and we know we’re late to the instagram party) a teacher asked for photos of center areas so she could switch up her K classroom layout.

We have lots of photos, but in the spirit of the Collective, we want to see what works for your classroom to give teachers as many options as possible.

So here’s our ask:

• Do you have photos of how you set up your classroom at the start of the year to be ready for play and all the learning that comes with it?

• Have you moved your gathering rug away from a screen?

• Do you have favorite materials that are hits for the first week with three, four, five, six year olds?

Let’s help teachers out!

You can hit reply to this email, send us a pic at hello@curiouslearningcollective.com, or tag us on instagram.

As always: we are so grateful for all you do for children and all you do for this community of educators.

Onward!

Kristi & Christine

A few new things this summer:

Some of you are still deep in summer mode and some of you are opening up your inbox and have students starting next week. If that’s the case for you- welcome back!

Here are two updates from us:

We are on instagram! We are sharing new resources, quick tips, wildest dreams, and our favorite things of the summer.

And have a new website! If you’d like to hear more about the why behind going from Playful Learning Collective to Curious Learning Collective, you can read more here. We are still devoted to support your learning and your students’ learning and forming a true collective where ideas are shared, connections are strengthened, and teachers feel empowered.

Keep in touch! We’d love to hear from you and hope you’re having a great summer.

Christine & Kristi

A few new things this summer:

We are on instagram! @curiouslearningcollective We are sharing new resources, quick tips, wildest dreams, and our favorite things of the summer. (Hint: they both have connections to Dallas, but for quite different reasons…)

And have a new website! If you’d like to hear more about the why behind going from Playful Learning Collective to Curious Learning Collective, you can read more here. We are still devoted to support your learning and your students’ learning and forming a true collective where ideas are shared, connections are strengthened, and teachers feel empowered.

Keep in touch! We’d love to hear from you and hope you’re having a great summer.

Christine & Kristi

For those of you that have followed us from the beginning, you know that we are always in a state of growth. From Mindset, to Kids First, to Taproots, we share the leading edge of our learning with you. But there have also always been constants: child centered, joyful, practical, real.

This next chapter is our biggest and most ambitious. We’ve talked to so many of you, worked side by side with you in classrooms, and witnessed the impact of policy changes and budget shortfalls. We’ve become parents ourselves. This has refined our understanding of what children (and the adults who guide them) truly need right now. We need more joy and curiosity, play of course, but also inquiry. We need resources that help us with decision fatigue. We need research at our fingertips. We need a community to share and learn with, and not just the wins, but the questions, the flops, the laughs.

So we’re becoming the Curious Learning Collective.

Here’s why: curiosity is the engine underneath so much of what we do. It’s what drives a child to ask why for the hundredth time. It’s what keeps a teacher alive in their craft after twenty years. It’s what moves a parent to sit beside their child and wonder alongside them. It’s why we haven’t stopped growing and learning as teachers and writers after decades of experience.

Curiosity is also a skill, one that can be nurtured, protected, and practiced. In a world that rewards speed and performance, curiosity asks us to slow down, look closer, and trust the process. It’s a capability children carry into adulthood, into work, into life.

Play lives inside curiosity. So does wonder, patience, questions, failure, discovery, and joy.

We are so excited to share what we have been working on, and most importantly, uplift and share more voices across more platforms. We hope this is a moment that can ignite a movement.

Our new instagram handle is: @curiouslearningcollective

Our new website is: curiouslearningcollective.com

Taproots will remain our primary blog, but we’re turning off payment. This space is free for everyone. Always. We are so very grateful to those of you who backed us financially and got us to where we are.

Help us grow our Instagram community:

When we reach 300 followers, we will raffle off a free seat at our August webinar.

When we reach 500 followers, we will raffle off a free copy of our first unit-full of ideas, lessons, resources, and useful materials to kick off a year of curiosity.

Welcome to Curious Learning Collective. We’re so glad you’re here.

Kristi & Christine

We know many of you are still in this mode

But, when you’re ready, as you think ahead to the coming school year, we’d love to support your planning. Join us for one of our Summer Planning Sessions in July or August to explore playful learning ideas, curriculum planning, and inspiration for the year ahead.

Register here!

PS. We can take POs- just email hello@playfullearningcollective.com.

We have many exciting things we are working on this summer that we are really excited to share. But this is all for this week:

It’s June! So many of us are getting back outside more and more. Here’s a checklist from Landscapes for Physicality on different components for outdoor spaces for children.

What would you add?

As you wind down the school year and (very slowly) start thinking about next year, we’d love to tell you a bit about our professional learning offerings in case you’re curious to learn more.

Our work with educators is rooted in the ideas we explore through this newsletter: that meaningful learning grows from curiosity, play, inquiry, belonging, and close attention to children’s thinking.

Everything you wanted to know about working with us, without even asking

Virtual Workshops

Engaging online workshops designed to foster meaningful dialogue and practical application. Virtual sessions are interactive, reflective, and grounded in real classroom examples and educator collaboration.

And there is still time to register for our virtual planning sessions this summer- come as you are!

District Professional Learning

Customized professional development experiences designed around your school or district goals. We support educators in creating classrooms where children’s ideas, questions, and identities are central to the learning process.

Possible focus areas include:

• Play-based and inquiry-driven learning

• Developmentally engaging early literacy practices

• Observation and documentation of children’s thinking

• Classroom environments and systems

• Curriculum rooted in curiosity and meaning and knowledge-building

Coaching Cycles

Embedded coaching that supports sustainable instructional change over time. Coaching cycles may include: classroom observation and reflection, collaborative planning, demonstration lessons, documentation study, and feedback conversations.

Inquiry Institutes

Multi-day learning experiences that help educators deepen their understanding of inquiry, play, and content-driven curriculum.

Keynotes

Interactive and inspiring keynote presentations that invite educators to rethink what is possible in classrooms rooted in play, inquiry, agency, and authentic engagement.

Our work is grounded in the belief that professional learning should feel the same way we hope learning feels for children: collaborative, reflective, joyful, intellectually engaging, and deeply human.

Please reach out by replying to this newsletter or emailing us at hello@playfullearningcollective.com. We’re happy to chat more to answer questions and would genuinely like to hear about what you are up to in your schools.

-Christine & Kristi

“New research has found that more than a third of children don’t play outdoors after school and 1 in 5 don’t during weekends, raising concerns about children’s physical and mental health.”

We are taking the month of October, the time when many of us already feel mounting pressure and fears we are falling behind on something, to center something that often gets overlooked around now: taking the kids outside.

We are not talking about allotted recess minutes, or walking to and from another classroom, but creating new opportunities to go outside to move and learn. Maia inspired us with her outdoor learning in the woods, Amber showed us how even concrete and a tiny patch of green can ignite learning, but let’s talk about that letter worksheet, or that seat work time in math. One of the problems with worksheets and seatwork is that there is a lost opportunity to embody the learning, or to build the physical structure of the brain through movement.

There are lots of natural opportunities to talk about literacy and math concepts anytime you step outside, but we can also create some basic experiences that get kids moving and working towards some of those ticky-tacky foundational skills we all need (the alphabet, skip counting, etc) Why do them on a worksheet if you can do them outside?

We will explore easy, playful, low prep outdoor opportunities to stand in for worksheets and seat work this month. If you already have an hour of woods time, you do not need to switch, but if you only have 15 minutes of recess, and the yard is full of kids at every other time, this month is about using that scrap of pavement in between classrooms to meet kids’ right to be outside to move and play.

This week: obstacle courses with chalk. Shout out to Cherise who gave us the great tip of using puzzles in this way.

How do you get outside throughout the day? Let us know in the chat!

Come learn with us this summer! We can take POs - just send us an email. Register here!

With the end of the school year in sight (even if it feels wayyyy off on the horizon), we’re turning our attention to wrapping up the year and planning for summer learning.

We recently received two questions from teachers and we thought we’d try to crowd source some answers like it’s Twitter circa 2014. #RIPedutwitter

What are your favorite ways to reflect on and wrap up a year?

Leave a comment

Thoughts? Any people to follow online? Are you trying something new and impactful you’d like to share? Have you read a really helpful profession text or article?

Leave a comment

This summer, we’re inviting teachers to come together for a virtual planning session designed to help you begin the school year with clarity, inspiration, and connection.

We’ll be offering the workshop on two different dates so you can choose what works best for you!

During our time together, we’ll help you create the foundation for a classroom where both children and teachers can thrive: a space rooted in meaningful routines, joyful learning, and authentic engagement. Together, we’ll explore ways to design a child-centered classroom environment, develop thoughtful structures that support flow throughout the day, and plan for rich, content-driven inquiry.

You’ll leave with:

• A blueprint and fresh ideas for creating a child-centered classroom environment for PreK–2nd grade.
• A menu of routines and structures to help your year begin with connection and clarity.
• A guide to meaningful first invitations for centers.
• A content-focused integrated birds study designed to spark curiosity and inquiry.

More than anything, we hope this workshop helps you plans for a year where learning feels purposeful, connected, and joyful for both you and your students. You’ll also have the opportunity to connect with a community of educators who are passionate about creating meaningful experiences for children.

The workshop is $149, and we gladly accept purchase orders.

Sign up here.

Have questions? Simply reply to this email. We’d love to hear from you.

-Kristi & Christine

PS: Here’s a peek at what’s included in two of the guides you’ll get as a part of this workshop. We have so much more to share with you.

We appreciate all teachers do every single week of the year, but we figured we’d offer our thanks this week by providing you with free access to our Guide to Launching Work Choice Centers.

This 22 page downloadable document includes:

• A room environment/centers overview and map

• A work choice time description

• Recommended materials list

• Generic launching procedures for launching centers intentionally

• Specific launches and ideas for 10 centers/interest areas: Sensory, Building, Art, Dramatic Play, Library, Puzzles, Message Center, Small World, Discovery, and Makerspace.

• A next steps planning document

You can download it on our website for free: Just use the code THANKYOU.

With deep gratitude,

Christine & Kristi

Last week we mentioned that we’re working on something new. A hybrid unit that engages children in deeply purposeful, authentic learning.

OF COURSE that work was very much inspired by the inquiry, play, and project-based work we’ve seen in classrooms all over the country. Amber McLandrich is a Kindergarten teacher in Beaverton, Oregon. She and her teammate Bobbi Janssen introduce their students to inquiry through a study of the “critters” they can find right outside (and inside!) their classrooms.

Starting next week, we’ll guide you through how we would plan, prep, and teach a similar unit across four phases.

We begin our year by teaching students how to be “Curious Kids.”

We realized that student inquiry is most impactful in kindergarten when they are wondering about a tangible thing right in front of themselves. Our school grounds look like they wouldn’t provide much room for inquiry. It’s your typical building with grass, sidewalks, and some plants around it. We have a few trees. It backs up to a creek but there is a giant fence stopping access so the kids can’t get close.

However, we have found that even an everyday space like this is teeming with little critters that students LOVE to investigate.

We have found ladybugs, ants, worms, pill bugs, slugs, snails, beetles, spiders, millipedes, and more just by teaching them to move aside dead leaves, lift up rocks, or simply get low to the ground and look closely.

A large portion of our students live in apartments. Our landscape is similar to what they have access to at their homes. This helps them see they can observe nature and be curious anywhere.

Our study of critters doesn’t even need to start outside. It doesn’t take long into the school year for a spider to crawl across the rug during a read aloud, causing a panic.

This is usually my first opportunity to say “Let’s study it!” This phrase “Let’s study it!” starts from me but becomes a common refrain from the students for the rest of the year.

I have little critter containers and cages and magnifying glasses ready so students can do observational drawings and ask questions when they see a critter. We learn more about the animal through observing the animal, looking at pictures, and reading books.

Students have a nature journal where they document their learning. There are times when we are all learning about an animal on the rug and other times when they are choosing to write in their journal about something they saw.

We usually make some kind of small world play so that students can act out what they learned during play workshop (we are now calling it Work Choice time thanks to the Taproots article.) We also allow students to bring out magnifying glasses to share with everyone during recess.

From there, it’s easy to make the jump to observe little critters they find outside. In rainy Oregon, worms are often on the playground. Students pick them up off the playground to save them.

This leads to us making a worm jar. When the worms aren’t on the playground on dry days, they miss them and begin digging around the playground to look for them.

This digging leads to finding other bugs. The cycle just goes round and round.

A kids yells, “I found a ______!” All the kids run to look at it and then they all start digging, turning over leaves, and searching for more.

Someone runs over to me and says “We need to study it!”

If it’s a bug I think we could bring inside for a short time, we put it in a little jar. Other times, I take an up close picture.

We have found that the students don’t need shovels to dig. They are happy to use sticks or even large bark chips they find around the playground. In fact, the fact that sticks are less efficient at digging than a shovel, encourages students to look closer for bugs rather than just making a giant hole (which has its benefits but we aren’t allowed to do for safety concerns.)

It’s magical to see heads together as they marvel over the smallest creatures that we usually walk by in our everyday lives without noticing.

The skills they build are innumerable, however, I think the most amazing learning to come out of it is them saying to a friend in their free time (recess), that they found something cool in nature and they want to study it together. It’s authentic agency as they collaborate with peers to inquire further.

The only downside? Be prepared to take MUCH longer walking anywhere! They now find wonderment in every tiny bug we come across. We all have to stop and observe it for a bit before we can move on. It’s not uncommon for me to have to say “Sorry we are late, there was a pill bug on the sidewalk” to the music teacher when we show up.

Thank you, Amber! We are so grateful you shared your classroom (inside and out) with us.

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Behinds the scenes we’ve been working on something new and (we think) exciting.

It’s not quite ready for primetime, but we’re deep in the weeds trying to figure out how we can create studies for children to engage in and for teachers to turn to as a thought partners and planning co-pilot.

When we started thinking about ways to weave purposeful learning into a study, we started getting muddy when it came to the difference between themes, projects, and inquiries.

In most cases, it’s not what you study (e.g. birds), but rather how and why you study it. What is the difference between a bird theme? A bird project? and a bird inquiry?

This chart helped clarify our thinking:

What we’re trying to do is take the best elements of each of these and weave them into something new: hybrid model that takes the intellectual depth of inquiry, the knowledge-building intentionality of a theme, and the child-driven investigation of a project.

What does that look like?

• Children study a big idea such as how birds survive two goals: building real knowledge about the world and learning how to learn.

• Children are actively learning and constructing knowledge through play and guided inquiry. Questioning, noticing, theorizing, revising.

• Children have an opportunity to learn concepts and vocabulary through rich hands on experiences, read alouds, and research.

• Teachers frames the big idea and designs the environment and experiences, balancing co-researching with planning, teaching, and documenting.

Think of the last time you learned something new. What motivated you? Why was it important to you?

Did you learn something to:

Solve a problem? Perhaps you learned to paint to cover up the stains on a wall or you learned about direct giving to support a community members in need.

Investigate a curiosity? Maybe you learned more about space after watching the Artemis II or learned more about a language before you visited somewhere new.

Follow an aesthetic? Perhaps you learned about pants to start a new garden or learned about pizza making to enjoy, well, pizza.

There are other reasons to learn new things, too. Learning can make us feel joy, connection, and meaning.

But when it comes to learning something new, how do we stay motivated and engaged?

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink argues that intrinsic motivation is driven by three core factors:

The three key elements in enduring motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy is having a measure of control over what we do and how we do it. Mastery is making progress and getting better at something that matters. Purpose is doing something that makes a difference in the world or a contribution to others.

So what does that look like in a classroom? What does it look like for children to be learning in a way that honors their autonomy, builds their mastery, and feels purposeful?

All too often, what children are learning in school is divorced from why they are learning it.

We’ve shared this quote before, but it remains a guidepost for us:

When young children engage in projects in which they conduct investigations of significant objects and events around them, for which they have developed the research questions and by which they themselves find out how things work, what things are made of, what people around them do to contribute to their well-being, and so forth, as can be seen in many reports of project work in the early years, their lively minds are fully engaged. Furthermore, the usefulness and importance of being able to read, write, measure and count gradually becomes self-evident.

Lillian Katz “Lively Minds”

Over the next several posts, we’re going to share our latest thinking about making learning purposeful and helping children’s “lively minds be fully engaged”.

We’ll explore:

• The latest research behind how children learn.

• The difference between themes, projects, and inquiry.

• Tips for transitioning from activities to exploration.

• A model for integrating studies and guided play.

Cherise Jones is a teacher on special assignment (TOSA) in Southern California. We are so grateful that she’s sharing a bit about her Counting Collections practice with us here.

An introduction to Counting Collections:

Counting Collections in the early education setting brings a world of mathematical possibility to the classroom that allows the young people to discover and strengthen their understanding of the mathematical world and gives the adults a glimpse into how the young person is thinking about numbers, quantity, cardinality, and organization and how they persevere, problem solve, engage creatively and express their ideas.

Key Ideas:

• Classroom activities should build up the ideas that our students have about numbers and quantities in the world instead of supplanting their ideas with formalized math ideas.

• The teacher sets up counting collections and has the collections ready, but the students are directing their engagement and attention with the collection.

Counting Collections can look deceptively simple and feel overwhelmingly complex simultaneously.

To launch a CC task with a group of students, you’ll need:

• blank paper for students to write on

• something for students to write with

• and some collections.

Collections in TK commonly range from 10-40 items per container or baggie. Collections can be any age appropriate item that is easily accessible, including: the blocks in the building area, a tub of Legos, paperclips, foam shapes, unifix cubes, crayons, small plastic animals, assorted puzzle pieces that don’t belong to a puzzle in the classroom, unused sporks or straws. The options are endless!

Then, we prompt with, “Let’s find out how many items are in our collections today!”

How could the logistics work?

Some classrooms benefit greatly from having all students participate in counting collections at the same time. Since all other work centers are closed and all students are working on counting their collection, some teachers find that the collective momentum keeps students focused and productive with their collections for longer. However, some teachers will find higher levels of engagement and focus when only one small group of students is counting collections at a time. Just remember, the students are to be directing their interaction with the collection even when seated at the “teacher table.”

As students get started with their collections, the adults in the room observe students as they dive in, listen attentively, capture anecdotal notes, videos and pictures as students work. We should approach CC through the lens of guided play. The teacher is setting up play and the students will be directing the play. Approach a child’s collection with curiosity and wonder as you seek to understand the mathematical ideas that surface as the student selects their own collection, counts their collection, represents their collection on paper and tells a peer or teacher all about their collection. Expect that each young person will find a unique entry point into the activity and will follow their own curiosities as they touch, move, organize and play with their objects. It is common and expected that early ed support providers will need to re-invite students to find out how many items are in their collection. Be prepared to embrace students’ unique perspectives and resist the urge to push students towards compliance, completeness or correctness.

Here are three examples of three students engaging meaningfully and productively with Counting Collections:

• A student has a collection of 18 butterflies in 6 different colors. She organizes them by color and lines them up in this way: 3 yellow butterflies, 3 orange butterflies, 3 blue butterflies and so on. When asked how many butterflies she has in her collection, she reports, “3 yellow, 3 orange, 3 blue …” The student does not take up the invitation to represent her collection on paper and begins to interact with the other students and collections at the table.

• A student has a collection of 26 dinosaurs. He explores each one as he carefully stands the dinosaurs up on their feet. When about half the dinosaurs are on their feet, the teacher re-invites the student to find out how many dinosaurs he has and he says, “One, two, tee, five.” The teacher checks for cardinality, “How many dinosaurs?” and he replies “Five!” The student continues to stand up more dinosaurs. He is then invited to represent or show his dinosaurs on paper. He selects a blue marker, makes a circle on the paper and places one dinosaur on the circle. He then draws a vertical line and moves a dinosaur from the table to the paper. He continues until all 26 dinosaurs are standing on either a circle or a vertical line on his paper.

• A student has 54 gold coins. She counts them in Spanish as she moves them one by one from the table to the teacher’s hands. She counts to 49 in Spanish but skips the numbers 7, 17, 27, 37 and 47 in the counting sequence. The teacher checks for cardinality, “¿Cuántas monedas tienes?” She removes the coins from the teacher’s hands and begins to count again. When she is invited to show her collection on paper, she looks around the table for meaning and sees another child tracing the objects onto the paper. The student selects a pink marker and begins to trace all 54 coins onto the paper and flips the paper over when she runs out of space.

Early education students often sustain attention with Counting Collections for about 10-20 minutes before the teacher creates the space for students to engage with the collections of others. This can take as few as 2 minutes and can be integrated before or after students return their collections to the bag or container.

• Students and teachers form a human train that walks through the classroom noticing the collections of others, possibly stopping to notice something interesting. (gallery walk)

• Show a picture of a student’s collector, recording page or both. Ask the class what they notice and what they wonder. The student who counted the collection can confirm and respond to the noticings and wonderings. (notice and wonder)

• A student shares their collection with the class. The teacher can bring the class to where the student’s collection is located, bring the collection to the center of the rug or display the collection on the board. The student tells the class all about their collection, often with prompts from the teacher. To keep the class involved, it is best to find an opportunity for the whole class to participate in the share. An example could be to ask the class to count aloud the items in the student’s collection as they point to the items or move the items. (open strategy share)

• Students are paired and travel together to visit the collection of one partner and then travel together to the other collection. You can guide these interactions initially by giving prompts like 1) tell your partner what you counted, 2) count the collection again together or 1) tell your partner what you counted, 2) tell your partner how you made your representation. (pair and share)

When teachers can maintain the mindset that we are setting up guided play through counting collections and allow our students to direct their engagement with the collections, we will create a space where students build confidence and ownership in their mathematical ideas and are willing to observe the interesting ways that their classmates engaged with their collections.

Deepening of CC

So you’ve collected items into baggies for students to count, engaged your students in counting collections, and you’ve been soaking up all of the very interesting ways they organize, count, and record their collections. As you watch your students with their collections you may have had one of the following questions, “What should I do when I see a student make a mistake?” or “Should I be differentiating the size of the collection for students who are just learning the number sequence?” Let’s explore these questions!

Misconceptions that arise as you watch students count their collections can be captured or recorded to inform future inquiry for the class. As an example, if you see student skipping numbers as they count or declaring that there are 100 items in their collection of less than 20 (because there are a lot of items), we might pose one of the following questions to the whole class or a small group of students later in the week:

• How do we know the number of items in our collections after we count?

• What are the ways we can figure out the next counting number?

You can embed these questions into a scenario and ask students to help you figure this out. “I was counting my collection just like this ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…’ and then I stopped. Can you show me how to remember what number comes next so that I can keep counting?” By accepting a variety of student responses, you scaffold students to use the tools and resources around them. You may conclude by saying, “When you are counting your collections today, you can also use (list the tools or ways that students suggested) to figure out your next counting number.”

There can be a tendency to want to match the size of the collection with how high a student can count. This can take all of the thinking and creativity out of the activity for students and frames Counting Collections with a focus on compliance, completeness and correctness. Remember, counting collections is set-up by teachers but directed by the student. We want to know: what will students do when their collection exceeds their counting sequence, in what unique ways will students organize, sort or engage with their collection, how do students watch and learn from others? When you know that a student is working with a collection that exceeds their counting sequence, you may consider approaching them by first asking them to tell you all about your collection. Then, ask a follow-up question about a specific detail of their collection like, “What did you do after you put the blue ones together?” or “Tell me about this group (pointing).” Finally, invite them to count a subset of their collection. Focusing on counting a subset can allow students to engage with a larger collection in meaningful ways while removing any pressure to know more than they currently do. It is important to note that you should always ask your follow up questions in ways that are congruent with what they student has already done or said about their collection. This validates the work and thinking that they have done while stretching them to count. Here are some examples:

• The student has a collection of over 20 butterflies that she has sorted by color. After asking her to tell me about her collection, I say ““I wonder how many blue butterflies are in your collection?” The student now counts the 4 blue butterflies and replies 4.

• A student has a collection of vehicles. He tells you that he has “these ones” on the floor because they are in the construction site. The rest of the vehicles are on the table. I ask, “How many vehicles are in the construction site right now?” Without counting, the student picks up both vehicles, one in each hand, and declares “Two!”

• A student has a collection of square tiles. He is picking up a tile at a time from a pile, tracing it on paper and then moving the tile a cup. After asking the student to tell me about his collection, I ask, “How many tiles have you already traced?” He empties the cup and places the tiles on the traced shapes on the paper and says, “This many!” I reply, “Wow! Those are all the tiles you’ve already traced. Do you want to count them together?” While we point together at the objects, we count to 7. He then puts the 7 back in the cup and continues to trace.

As more questions arise, you can guide your response by reflecting on whether your response will allow the student to build up their inherent mathematical ideas without supplanting them with formalized math ideas and whether your response allows the student to keep their role as their director of their engagement in the collection.

Thank you Cherise! Here’s a printable one-pager we made from Cherise’s post:

There are so many ways to explore mathematical ideas in the natural world.

Here are five ways you might invite children to look closely, observe, and communicate what they notice :

This was a post in our series on re-envisioning the first hour of the day. Earlier this year we shared ideas for signing in:

Below, we’re exploring the routine of “counting in.” But, first, a logistics question:

How might you make these routines work for you and your students?

Here are two options:

Option 1:

• Have check-in, sign-in and count-in in a similar location

• Call heterogeneous groups over to complete morning routines in groups of 4.

• Coach as needed

Option 2:

• Have check-in, sign-in and count-in scattered around the room.

• Children complete morning routines independently.

• Teacher and assistant work with targeted students in one of the areas each day.

We’d love to hear- what works for your class?

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