Math - Distance

Talk to the children about distance.

Ask questions like:

• How did you get to school today?
• Why do you think some people walk or bike while others take the bus?
  Would you like to play a game?

Choose two or three spots around the classroom to be “train stops.”
Name the stops.
Ask the children to walk from one stop to the next and count how many steps they’ve walked.
Compare the number of steps between each of the stops.
Talk about which distance is longer and why.

Have the children pick building cards and work together to build the models shown (three models are suggested).
Ask them to build a double-ended track and place their models alongside it.
Now experiment with the app.
Let’s start the train!
Ask the children how many numbers they’ve seen in the app. Can they count from the smallest number to the biggest?
Press each number and see how far the train moves.
Have the children pick the number(s) that will help the train reach each stop

Tip: Make sure the engine is connected to the app before experimenting with the different numbers.

Talk to the children about distance.

Asking questions like:

• Why do people use different vehicles like bikes, cars, and airplanes?
• When do people take airplanes or buses?
• When do they walk or bike?

Encourage the children to build more stops and decide the distance between them.

Ask questions like:

• Which distance is the shortest/longest between the stops and how long is it?
• Can you describe the path of the train’s journey? (e.g., it started from…, stopped or passed…, and ended at…)

Ask guiding questions to elicit students’ thinking and their decisions while ideating, building, and programming.

Observation Checklist

• Review the learning objectives and educational standards addressed in this lesson (Teacher Support box).

• Share specific student responses and behaviors at different levels of mastery.

• Use the following checklist to observe students’ progress:

  - Students can create and describe a sequence of events.
  
  - Students can predict the expected outcome of the sequence of events, with prompting.
  
  - Students can compare two distances using descriptive words like longest, shortest.
  

Use this lesson’s format to work with Longer Distances and explore more numbers with your
kindergartners!