Kindergarten Math Games

a celebration of students' skills

Some sat at small tables, others spread out on the classroom carpet or found a cozy corner. Where ever you looked in Katonah Elementary's three kindergarten classrooms on the morning of January 26, the school's youngest students and their guests were happily engaged in coloring squares and chatting, tossing dice and talking, moving little pieces and laughing.

Kindergarten Math Games is an annual event at Katonah Elementary School.

"The games help children explore fundamental number concepts such as the counting sequence, one-to-one correspondence, subitizing and addition and subtraction strategies," said teacher Sheryl Carini. "Teaching their parents how to play helps students improve their metacognitive processing and their vocabulary, as well as boosting their self-confidence and feelings of competence and autonomy."

four in a row

roll and record

high fives and hugs

The students had a special role in Kindergarten Math Games. They were the teachers! “You will explain to your parents how the games work,” Ms. Carini had told her students that morning. They were prepared.

“We start by making long trains of 20 click blocks,” one student explained to her parent. “Roll the dice and subtract that number of cubes from your train."

“Two plus three is five,” said one dad, adding up his dice during a game of Bump. “Oh, I should be letting you do that!”

Carini, teacher assistant Samantha Thompson and teacher aid Cathy Lopez visited with families and popped into games, making sure all players had the dice, crayons and game sheets they needed, answering parents' questions and enjoying the fun.