Math Work Stations/Chpt 4: The nuts and bolts of Math Work Stations!

The beginning of math stations in my classroom and early number concepts will be the Nuts and Bolts! of my math curriculum this coming fall. We as teachers must all begin with basic  number concepts. Sounds like common sense I know, but we need to really explore the concept of what each number represents.
The author explains that many children can rote count before they come into my kindergarten classroom, but that doesn't really mean they deeply understand the number! Through my math lessons I need to "attach meaning  to numbers as quantities."(p72)Many parents tell me how well and or how high their little kindergarten student can count, but do they really know what those numbers mean!
This has been a great chapter for giving me ideas of adding more joy to my classroom through math stations! I have received numerous ideas on games that we already have in the classroom but how I can differentiate and make them either more challenging for an advanced learner or add helps for a student who might need more guidance!  I will increase the use of "math talk" in my classroom and lessons: use of the words, bigger, more, less, equal.
I have used up tons of ink printing off ideas, games and lessons to enhance my classroom this fall: Now off to make my shopping list for a few needs to include in my math stations and definitely printer ink to be ready to print off more ideas from other great teachers who are participating in this book study and blog party!!!
Yes it is summer, but between visits to the pool, checking out other blogs and shopping for new materials I am prepping for an awesome start to the next school year!