A Kmart addiction on the way!

The photos in this blog were sent to me by a very clever teacher friend, Marlise Gersch. Marlise’s friend Jayne told her about the wooden Connect 4 game called 4 in a Row, on sale at Kmart, so off Marlise went to buy one.

When she took it into her Reception (Foundation) class she turned it into a data collection tool.

As her students come into class in the morning, they hurry over to the 4 in a row grid to read and answer the morning’s question by dropping the selected counters into the frame.

Marlise told me that one of the early questions was:

“Did you have toast for breakfast?”

When the students gathered on the carpet, she surprised them by telling them that she knew how many children had toast for breakfast. The students thought it was magic but soon came to realise that she had used the counters in the frame to find how many liked toast.

Each morning now the students excitedly look for the question of the day and engage in meaningful counting and comparison activities on the carpet as they work with the data collected.

Some of the questions have an element of chance too. ‘Will we have nature play today?’ … might lead students to look out at the weather and make an informed decision such as ‘Yes, very likely, because the sun is shining and there are no clouds’.

I hope you find this as inspirational as I did. What a clever and innovative use of a familiar piece of equipment.

Thanks for sharing Marlise.

P.S. I wonder if Kmart is still open. Look out Johnny – Toy collecting next!!