Mouse Collections - Math through Storybook Roleplaying (Early Math Collaborative at Erikson)

View more in our Early Math Idea Library: earlymath.erikson.edu/ideas
Preschool storytime is a great time to teach mathematics! In this video, two teachers use Ellen Stoll Walsh’s Mouse Count to illustrate the concept of “less and more.” Students role-play either as the snake, who collects mice for dinner one by one, or the mice, who eventually outsmart the snake and escape one by one. Using role-playing and storytelling provides younger students a jumping-off point for learning more abstract math ideas. View more at earlymath.erikson.edu
In this video, children think about what makes a story a number story. They model joining and separating situations with their bodies and with concrete objects and describe changes to a collection as objects are added or taken away.
COMMON CORE ALIGNMENT: Operations and Algebraic Thinking
FOUNDATIONAL MATH TOPIC: NUMBER OPERATIONS
When children focus on what happens when we join two sets together or separate a set into parts, they learn about how quantities change. When they have lots of experience comparing amounts, they become familiar with thinking about differences between sets. And when they have opportunities to see how a single large set can be composed of two or more smaller sets, they get comfortable with the fact that larger numbers contain smaller numbers. These ways of mentally modeling real situations are what we mean by number operations.

[@kevinoberhausen1451]

Brilliant! thanks for sharing