Counting to 10 Through Sculpture

Langston Hughes Academy, Kindergarten
Math & Visual Art Ms. Eliza + Mrs. Ceazer

In Mrs. Ceazer’s kindergarten class, students are learning how to count. To facilitate learning about this, we started learning about sculpture. We started the class by practicing counting to 10. I then introduced students to the medium of sculpture by showing them some famous works of art that are right here in New Orleans. I also found examples of sculptures that were made using distinct elements that were countable. We practiced counting how many different pieces each of these sculptures had. 

I prepared different stackable elements that students could assemble into sculptures of 10. I brought in boxes, triangles, and balls. We divided the class into two sections and had them build different sculptures using the different elements. We did a couple of rounds of this work, and each time we finished a sculpture, as a class, we counted how many different elements each piece had. If they had 13 elements, we did some simple subtraction to figure out how to get the sculptures down to 10. It was very fun and lively.

We then had a feedback session where students shared what they liked about each sculpture. If I were to do this project again, I would divide the students into smaller groups so they could all get a little more practice with building and counting sculptures.