A Touch of Cooperative Learning

This past February, I went with my kindergarten team to a Kagan training. Dr. Kagan practiced what he preached, and I enjoyed the experience very much! Even though I had had previous cooperative learning training, it was a valuable and fun experience. With the end of the year coming, cooperative learning strategies makes teaching exciting... even with the summer fever present!


Today, my kindergarten students were working with their partners on place value from 0-20. Partner A wrote their numerals 0-9 in red. Partner B wrote their numerals 0-9 in green. I gave each pair of students a file folder placemat and 20 cubes. Partner A got to create a numeral using his numeral cards first. If they made a numeral higher than 20, Partner B was suppose to tell Partner A that amount is greater than 20. If they made a numeral between 0-20, then Partner B made it with the cubes. Partner A was suppose to check their work and count together. Then it was Partner B's turn to make a number. After about 5 minutes, I asked the students who had the red cards to collect their cards and stand up. They were to find a new partner with green cards, and work with that new partner. After about another 5 minutes, I had my students with green cards collect their numeral cards, and find a new partner with red cards. Changing partners helped my students stay engaged longer with this activity. Tomorrow we will do the same activity but with numerals and cubes to 50.

Here are two children sitting side by side facing the file folder place value chart.

Here is a close up of what they created. The file folder has 10 sticky dots on one side for the ones side. Below are the red numeral cards showing 17.

Here is another student making a number less than 10.