Felt Story!

Felt Story to support Math Literacy!

All felt characters that we are using are essential to the story because they will support the children’s understanding of the ABAB pattern sound. The felt animals are correlated with the animals in the book. We were teaching the skill of pattern recognition—the ability to perceive patterns in the surrounding world. Pattern recognition is one of the main building blocks for teaching math in later years. Algebra begins with a pattern—all of math does. By teaching patterns to children at a young age, we are actually beginning to teach them math, which is actually extremely beneficial in social-emotional development because math helps children notice other patterns in the world around them. Children can use the skills they build in our reading activity, as well as other pattern-based activities, in order to identify patterns in other social aspects of their lives. This book supported the children’s understanding of patterns through the repetition of syllables and rhyming words because they learned to expect similar phrases when reading rhyme books.

Reflection:

It went very well! The kids were really excited by the animals—we did a bug book and they loved looking at the different bugs. There were only three kids (because two were very active and playing outside), but the three kids really enjoyed the story. They’re all around three years old, and one of the three year olds is very articulate. He enjoyed counting the legs on the caterpillar, and he and the other two children quickly figured out the ABAB pattern and knew what word was coming next by the third bug. I learned (and have been learning) that kids are really receptive, and learn very quickly. The difficulty of the book seemed very age-appropriate for our group because there is a mix of 2’s and 3’s in our class. It took the children about three pages to pick up on the ABAB pattern, but once they did, they were very excited to call out the word that came next. They demonstrated an understanding of patterns through the repetition of syllables and rhyming words and learned to expect similar phrases in the following pages. I would say reading more rhyme books that emphasize the ABAB pattern would help build on their understanding of patterns (and math literacy), and then eventually, as they get older we can begin to incorporate more tangible pattern-based activities to go along with the books.