Shoes and math

grouping and measuring shoes

Venn diagram

Recently, the children have done several math activities with shoes.

The first activity involved grouping the shoes.  First, everyone got all their shoes and boots from their cubby and off their feet.  They put them in a line and counted them.  Next the shoes were put in pairs, then in groups of  5's and finally in groups of 10.   We did not have 100 pairs like the caterpillar in the book, One Hundred Shoes so ours did not make complete sets.  After grouping the shoes, someone suggested measuring the line of shoes.  I asked them what they were going to use to measure them and all of a sudden all of the rulers were lined up next to the shoes.

          black                        velcro

The next time shoes were used was to introduce Venn Diagrams.  It is difficult to see in the photograph but there are two paper circles on the floor.  Different labels were put on the circles, for example: black and velcro, and the children had to determine where their shoe would go, inside one of the circle, where the circles intersect, or outside the circles.  We did many variations.

 As the week continued, we worked with smaller Venn diagrams using plastic bears and geometric shapes of varying colors and sizes.