Kindergarten Math Lesson

Kindergarten Talk Moves and Close Reading

Today I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Smith's Kindergarten Classroom. Our focus was on math discourse and getting the kiddos to talk and listen to different opinions using "Which One Doesn't Belong?"



To begin the lesson I introduced talk moves. Talk moves allows every student to engage in the conversation by signaling different motions with their hands as they hear students talk or if they want to answer. In kindergarten, we focused on only three of the talk moves: Thumbs up to answer, pinky and thumb out to agree to a students answer, and both fist together if another student wants to add on to a students answer. Talk moves are great to keep every student engaged in the conversation.




After introducing talk moves. Students were partnered up and we turned to our lesson focus. Students were showed a power point and had to decide which one didn't belong. In each slide there is more than one reason that one of the pictures doesn't belong. Students used talk moves to answer which allowed myself to know which students were engaged and who wanted to add to the conversation.

I had students use the sentence stem, "The _____ doesn't belong because _______. This was great for our English Language Learners.
Student answers to the picture above included: "The triangle doesn't belong because it only has three sides and the other shapes all have four." and "The diamond doesn't belong because it is not shaded in"

To the left answers included: "The purple dice doesn't belong because it is purple and the others are white." "The 5 doesn't belong because it is the only number and the others are dots." and "The one doesn't belong because all the rest show 5 and that dice only shows 1.

Here is a link to the slide show I used to introduce talk moves and Which one doesn't belong.
Slideshow

Her is the address for more "Which one Doesn't Belong" scenarios to use in any grade: Which One Doesn't Belong

Let me know if you would like help implementing this in your classroom!