Negative numbers in preschool

Negative numbers are very confusing to a lot of people. I hear a lot of teachers saying, “you can’t do that,” if a student writes 5-7 (instead of the actual question of 7-5). What I would like to hear is something like “Right now we are only subtracting the smaller number from the larger number.” I say this because it’s my pet peeve about math and when we get into negative numbers we can do that. I used to do it regularly with my bank account when I was a starving student. Why set a child’s mind up for future confusion.

            I also think that the idea of negative numbers should be introduced in preschool. Especially if you live in a climate where it does get below 0. That would be a perfect real life example to bring to the children. As for me I live in a very temperate climate so I just put up a number line that goes from the floor to the ceiling that includes negative numbers. I also talk about if you borrowed apples from a friend and negative numbers are as if you owed someone apples back.

            Just introducing the idea that there are such things as negative numbers is helpful. It is like having a preview of what is coming. 

Mathematical language

            I have found that so many teachers are afraid of math and then they pass that on to the students. Even the semantics of math is troublesome; there are only math problems, no math questions. We don’t have Social Studies problems to figure out, we say instead Social Studies questions. I try to say math questions; I think it sets the brain up to figure out the answer in a positive frame of mind.

Math and mathematical language is something that is very important in a preschool, early childhood setting. Whether you are a preschool teacher, teacher’s aid, or a homeschooler parent, everyone in the world of a young child should be using mathematical language.

Mathematical language is saying descriptive words such as tall, short, long, wide, thin, as well as shapes; it is the positional words like, far, near, behind, above, below, left, and right; talking about money; talking about numbers; asking how high, how low, how long; comparing objects such as this tower is taller than that house. All these things are so easy to say and it increases a child’s mathematical literacy by so much. This is something so easy to do and so important to do too. 

The Path

When I was a student teacher at Mills College I had the exceptional good luck to student teach under the guidance of the Infant Toddler Lead Teacher Bethica. She was amazing, her knowledge and understanding about what the children could learn. I have since lost touch with her but I gained so much from her mentoring.

One of the things that I gained from her was the idea about how the young brain works, an image really. Everyone knows that we have neurons and synapses, and stuff like that going on in our brain. We also know that when a certain pattern of behaviors or actions happen it begins to create a neuro-path way. For example when a baby cries, she gets picked up and comforted. Repeatedly doing this helps her learn that when she needs something she can cry and comfort will soon follow.

One day at the Mills Children’s School, we were discussing brain development. Bethica explained that it was as if a child’s brain were a large grassy field. As we develop, learn, and experience life, it creates paths across the grassy field. The more the a path is used the deeper it becomes (the more ingrained). When we want to change a behavior we need to make a new path and attempt to avoid the old path.

I always thought this was an excellent visualization of how Neural pathways develop. So thank you Bethica for being such a brilliant teacher of young children!!