Just how do you differentiate to meet the needs of our young gifted and advanced students? Here are some ideas and resources. I would love to hear how these work for your students. Any suggestions? Please let me know.
One way to differentiate math for our gifted and advanced primary students is to provide them with a framework like the one seen here. The number in the middle can be varied and selected by the teacher or the student. This activity provides a great opportunity for authentic math discussion. This can be further differentiated by changing the operations (add and subtract to multiply and divide).
Download file- File Ways to Make a Number
I was covering a kindergarten class during math time and the students were partnered up and playing a dice game. As I circulated, I could easily spot the students who were not being challenged by the activity. I really played it up and said- It looks like you are ready for a challenge! Thank I simply handed them an additional die and asked them to find the sum. A couple of groups were up to 5 dice. Some reverted to using their fingers to count, which was fine by me!
Differentiated Math: Primary Geometry
Download File Shapes for Primary
Start with the standards and build from there. If you have a kindergarten student who comes to you with a pretty good background on geometry, consider given that student a task like the one to the left. This can be used as a task or a pre-assessment. You should be able to tell if your student has mastery of the standard based on his/her performance. If your student can do this
type of task they should not be doing tasks that only require them to identify.
Consider the Kindergarten Math Standard- Identify and describe shapes (squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres). You can use the sheet to the left to pre-assess or to assign as a task.
Download file here. Differentiated Shapes Primary. Use details to describe