Number Play
Here's a question for you: What is a number?
We've been exploring this question in class using the tree branch that stands in front of our window. Until early this week, it was a "kindness tree," with paper leaves carrying all sorts of lovely stories of kindness in and out of the classroom. This week, I took down all of our kindness leaves to make space for something new -- number leaves.
The project we started on was deceptively simple, but has deep results in terms of showing children's thinking. I gave the children paper leaves and markers and asked them to make number leaves for the number tree. Our younger students strongly identified "number" with quantity. One young three-year-old made a scribble on each side of her leaf. When I asked her about her number leaf, she pointed to the first scribble and said, "one hamburger!" Then, she flipped it over, pointed to the other scribble, and said "two hamburgers!", showing that she identified numbers with counting items.
Somewhat older children realized how expansive thinking of numbers this way could be - a child who was at the table at the same time as the hamburger artist drew circles all over her leaf, turned to me with wide eyes and a hungry grin, and gleefully said, "One hundred hamburgers!!!!"
For still older children, the mystery was even deeper, showing them to be ready to jump into the world of writing. Two children who are both well-prepared to start kindergarten in the fall connected numbers with written symbols. When asked to make a number leaf, they both very seriously and with deep concentration drew...letters.
I could have treated this as a mistake, but it's not - it shows that these kids are thinking of numbers as written symbols, part of this mysterious world of chicken scratches that they are just beginning to understand holds so much meaning.
Knowing this, we are better able to meet children where they are and support their learning from the place that they are already at.
