Clutter Free--Step 1

Well we went back to school today. Roads were rough, but we made it!  On my day off, I spent my time reading blogs and finding ways to better my teaching.  I discovered:

I could not do step 1 since I was at home, but I did do Step 2.  I made a list of rules for when I sort through my stuff the steps I must follow.

So here we are with step number one.  Before photos.  

Oh boy, I have clutter.  Now, I know I work in a play based classroom so there are toys out for students and there isn't supposed to be a lot of areas in which the students don't touch--the room should be accessible to the students.  Sometimes the area just stresses me out though!

Take a look at my messy desk!  This picture was taken between classes on my lunch.  ugh. Cringe.

When sitting at my desk and looking to my left (towards the door) you can see under the stairs to the treehouse.  Somewhat organized, but a lot of mess.

This is under my desk.  I have a lot of bags.  I have a lot of mess.  I have stuff taped to my heater.  Ugh.

This is behind my desk.  I have lots of drawers and I am attempting to organize, but at the same time, its just not there.

This is the view of the wall my desk, tree house, and sensory table

are on.  This is the wall to the right of the door.

This is the view of the sensory table.  Above the sensory table, I have a list of describing words.  To the right, the five senses posters.  To the left: The check in pocket chart, we wish you well board, and friends and family board. 

This is the bin of literacy bags (on the floor), library return box (purple crate) and set of drawers with the AM nap cards, uh-oh you left it out bucket, and book hospital.  On top of that is their folder drop off area.  I need it all and it needs to be accessible, but not out....hmmmm.

This is the front of my room.  This is looking at the door.  This includes my white board, morning circle area, and puzzles and games center.  

This is where I  run my  morning circle time.  The milk crate  (literally, a crate that once delivered milk to our school from a local dairy distributer).  It  was all I had at the time to hold the books I use for circle time.  

This right here, makes me cringe.  This is the puzzle and games center.  Students have free choice play time, they have the use of this area, and clean up at the end of the 15-20 minute play time.  They have a lot of work to do.

The art center is to the right of the circle time area.  The shelf with the bins faces the art center.  This center is doing better, but not quite there.

This is the back wall, to the right of the art center.  To the left is the art center.  In the middle is the small white table is the writing center table, and behind that is the discovery center table.  to the right of that is the home living center, currently an igloo.


The discovery center is where they do math and science activities. These materials often get dumped, but when it comes to putting back they aren't always the greatest.  That being said, I think this is the way it is because I work with 4 year olds....


The homeliving center. Kids love it, I hate the mess.  I love hearing their imagination and all they can come up with, I hate the mess.  I just want to have a more clean fun.  More labels maybe?

See what I mean?!?  Mess!

This is the back wall.  To the left is the homeliving.  To the middle, the block center, and to the right we are back at my desk again.  Block center does clean well, they do put the things away...it just takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

This brings me to those big brown doors you saw with the word wall and the discovery center.  

My closets.  My storage.  My collection of mess you couldn't see.  My only area the kids don't touch.  We are going left to right.

Top shelf: all that kleenex and disinfectant wipes that came in on the first day of school as school supplies....and  a pirate ship that is to tall to fit anywhere else.

Second: puzzles.  All of them are puzzles.  So many puzzles.

Third: Left Games that I change out on the puzzles and games shelves.  To the right, all the snack items.  Students bring in snack for the whole class for a week.  We also need 5 oz cups for the milk and napkins to put snack on.  It has to live somewhere....

Bottom: Sensory table items, bins, and letter puzzle pieces...this shelf frustrates me.


The middle set is dramatic play and blocks.
Top Shelf:  boxes are my HUGE paper boxes I got (my father-in-law works in a paper mill).  I put seasonal items from posters, decorations, manners, and more in each box by season.

Second: Blocks, trains, dump trucks

Third: Lincoln Logs, cars, house, blocks

Bottom: Dramatic play clothes, homeliving dishes and clothes, rescue heroes.

The right set is my books and thematic materials.


Top Shelf, more of the seasonal boxes.

Second & Third: Thematic units in chronological order.  Back to school through graduation/kindergarten.

Fourth: units that can be sorted out, brought in in rotation.  Pets, dinosaurs, pirates, farm, zoo, etc.

Bottom: Class favorites and storys with morals: behavior problems, sharing, handling emotions, respect, etc.  The right side is a continuation of the rotated in themes.

There are labeled bins with games for particular themes and the book box of book pertaining to that theme are resting on top.   This closet is my favorite.

Furthest on the right.    The supply closet.

Top shelf:  Left-index cards center, various types of paper, right- bins of coloring books.

Second Shelf:  large paper.  Rolled up, folded, etc.

Third Shelf: baskets of smaller types of paper.  Left to right getting larger types of paper.

Fourth Shelf: bins of supplies-crayons, pencils, colored pencils, dry erase markers.

Fifth shelf: paint , markers, junk

Sixth: Glue, Glue Sticks, extra supplies/random

Very bottom: Big books and books on tape crate.  These are used by the whole early childhood program and need to be stored in this location as there are no other locations in the school.  

Desk Drawers. Eww.

Middle Drawer: right now it is all my writing utensils, stapler, paper, punch, tape (apparently 2), etc.

Top Right Drawer: right now, cough drops, lights for under the tree house that never went up, water flavoring, and beans for science...what a combo! 

Bottom Right Drawer: paper towels, ziplock bags, tampons, extra electronic parts that were in a box when I got here, and snacks for my low blood sugar or late nights at school. Yeah, my desk is a hot mess.

Top left Drawer: velcro, cut up contact paper, tape rolls, labels, stickers.

Middle Left Drawer: notepad, my markers/crayons/colored pencils, random birthday supplies donated by a parent, and notecards.

Bottom Left Drawer: page protectors, card stock, roll of paper, roll of contact paper, Stationary.

File Cabinet Drawers

Bottom Drawer: 

Individual student files, extra sweater (our school gets cold!), borders rolled up, random calendar numbers left by the previous teacher.

Middle drawer: 

• Front files are word cards purchased from Kindergarten Smiles.  TpT Link to word file folder.  
• Letter of the week files: all the originals for coloring book page, bubble letter decorated with something of that letter, ___ is for ____ hand print page, and the Cricut cut letters for the wall.
• Back: Thematic units: big hanging folders are labeled for each season.  The file for each theme is in the correct hanging folder.  Bags are materials such as bingo games, left over whole punches (those were a beast to make, I will save all I can!), and like materials.

Top Drawer: 

Curriculum, lesson plan fillers for subs, literacy ideas and training  information, Parent letters  and orientation information, and  other ideas for concepts such as writing, number sense, etc.

So, I have a start but not there yet.  I have ideas, but some things I feel I am stuck on. I am hoping this process will help me to grow and feel more in control of my space. 

One of those Weeks...

Well this week was supposed to be a second week of community helpers.  Turned out it was one of those weeks where it was, well, just not.

It was Catholic Schools week at our school.  Though I run the public school program in a Catholic school, my kids participated in the fun stuff going on in the school that was non-secular.  It wasn't supposed to affect our schedule much so we went right on planning do do helpers this week.

On Monday I was going to take a short break from community helpers to work on shapes and colors. In doing my fall and winter assessment, I noticed that this class was struggling with some of the shapes.  I decided we could play shape/color bingo in small groups.

We played this game, but one thing I didn't like was that there was no oval, hexagon, heart, or rhombus/diamond.   I may create one of these on my own, but I do think the Bingo helped them to get some of the shapes.
When calling the colors and shapes I:

• Did not show them the picture, but said the shape and color.
• I mentioned how many sides the shape had: "Find the rectangle. Two long sides, two short sides. The rectangle."
• If a student was searching and seemed confused I repeated the shape description.  If they didn't have it on their card I would say something along the lines of "Oh, you don't have the red rectangle, but if you look over by your hand you have a blue rectangle. See the two short sides and the two long sides?"  If they did: "See that shape by your hand that has two short sides and two long sides?  Count the long sides, count the short sides?  Does that have 2 long and two short?  Good, you got it!"

I feel this method of not showing them and not letting their friends tell them helped them hear the word, learn what really makes that shape what it is, and problem solve on their own.  I noticed some progress just in working on it that day.

This was great with the AM class, but in the afternoon we had a (great) science show put on by the High Schoolers in the area in the afternoon.  The kids really enjoyed the science show, but it was literally their entire time there.

On Tuesday, I planned on doing our letter of the week, decorating the letter, as we always do.  H is for hearts.  Well in the AM we had "HOP FOR LEUKEMIA" A fundraiser the students did where they got donations based on how many hops they did.  A great idea, a great discussion on how the more hops we do, the more money we can give doctors to find the right medicine to help them.  One little boy even pointed to the family picture and stated that this was "like Mr. Gloudemans' job!"  Yay, they listen when I talk!  This took up a majority of the AM, but they did get their letters made.

In the afternoon, the 5th graders came to count their hops.  We then made our hearts on our H, and they had their play time.  I called them over in small groups and they did get to play their shape bingo.  Sound great right, except, we haven't gotten to community helpers yet.....

Well Wednesday brings a blessed email/phone call to me (I have been sick with a very nasty cold, but not calling in because of all the festivities):

Yay snow (actually a rain, cooled of 20*, sleet, cooled of another 20*, and snowed on top of all that) day!  Except.....Wednesday was the day we were going to do a community helper math match, and read Curious George and the Dump Truck and discuss how construction workers help as well as sequence of events in the story(another skill I discovered we need to work more on)  Oh darn!

I had them do their math match, as their morning work and did not do today's journal.  It got done, they got the math concept, but we didn't get much discussion on it as we would have if we would have done it in small group.  On Thursday we always plan on doing our hand print letter activity: H is for Hippo. In the morning we got it done, but instead of second circle on Thursdays we do our handwriting sheet...so no Curious George. In the PM I actually left for a field trip with the students who stay and ARE in the Catholic school program as a chaperone (but part of my AM program).  My AM aide stayed with my PM class and did the work with them.

As I said, it was just one of those weeks.  I am glad they are still getting their letter work and still getting the standards they need to meet (math, speaking, fine motor, etc) but a little sad we didn't get to more of the small group discussions on all the helpers in the community.  Well, there is always next year!

Journals

We introduced writing journals to the students.  The students: 

• Come into the room, drop their folders off like normal, and check in (now either find their last name or type their name in)
•  They then find their journal (AM class has green journals, and PM has yellow journals--the color corresponds with their cubbies as well. I try to keep myself sane...anything in Green is for AM, Yellow for PM.  Being a packer fan it is green and gold and that helps me remember which is which green first then gold. ;) )
• As they sit down, I announce the topic and draw their idea.
• They then get a pencil cup from the journal bin and write what they see.  I have them writing "the best they can" right now. Some this is wavy lines (though I expected this nobody did this!), random letters across the page (many kids ability), the initial sounds they here (a couple kids), or invented spelling (2-3 of my older girls).  They are excited to start writing and to use "real pencils." 
• They then tell me and my aide when they are done, we write what they said their words said in pen under their text, and have them put their journal back with the right color.  

The journals are stored in a bin with green facing one way, yellow facing the other.  The pencil cups are in the bin.  There is also an "oops, my pencil broke and need sto be sharpened" bucket in there for them to drop their pencil in and select a new one.  

This is teaching them:

• routine
• independence
• letters sounds, authentic writing, concept of print, and the fact that letters make words and words make us understand something that is trying to be told.  

We have only done it twice so far.  The scaffolding is pretty strong, but they are doing well.  My hope is that eventually they will be able to do most of it on their own (the process, not the writing).  

I brought this into our classroom to help prepare then for kindergarten when they will begin journaling, writing the best they can, and expected to follow routine in writing time with out being helped the whole way.  So far, so good. :)

Photos coming soon!  We are currently at home due to a snow day (well a: it rained, cooled of 20*, sleeted, cooled of another 20*, and snowed on top of all that, day).

Clutter-Free Classroom 2013

Yay!  I am excited to get started with

A problem I am running across is the fact that I am not actually in my classroom due to the snow.  

This means I cannot do challenge 1 (before photos) and challenge 3 (surface clean) until I am actually in the room.  

That leaves Challenge number 2:

Develop a plan for decluttering your space and compose a list of "non-negotiable must purge" rules. 

So here goes:

1. If it is not yours, find whose it is. Give it to them.

2. If it is being stored in your room for a reason (since we are a small Catholic school and we do share each other's space for lack of other space) give it a designated location and only that item can be in there.

3. If it is an item for art projects not being used this week, put it in the art closet (DOWN THE HALL-not in your room in another cluttered location)

4. If it is a seasonal item, put it in its seasonal box in closet.

5. If it is a lesson plan idea, put it in file cabinet in its correct file.

6. If it is for a thematic unit, put it in a bin, label it, and put it in the closet under the corresponding book box.

7. If it is not going to be used in an already defined plan, but "could be cool one day" or "could be used for some kind of art project," put it in the art closet  (DOWN THE HALL-not in your room in another cluttered location)

8. All bins that students put toys in need a picture and word label so they can do it themselves.

9. Reteach how to play the games on the game shelf and how to clean up store.

10. Have a more effective way to store students' games/folder games so they can do it themselves.--Reintroduce the Uh-oh Bucket.

11. If it is broken and to hard/expensive/useless, throw it away.  If it is a danger to a student, throw it away.  If it is not serving a purpose in my room and can't anywhere else, throw it away.

12. If it survives the garbage, the donation pile, and the relocation pile: IT MUST GO IN A LABELED (photo and text) BIN.

13. Print this page and put it in the white binder (that you know is just sitting on a  shelf and needed to be used or gotten rid of anyway!)  Use this binder as your clutter free-classroom organization binder. --print all this stuff on the one-side-already printed-on-paper-but-can-be-used-for things-not-going-to-students-or-home-paper to further recycle. ;)

You, too, can get a clutter free classroom!  Click on the image to take you to this challenge, and get all of her weekly challenges!

Insert excited, sick, needs a break, 4k teacher squeal here!

Tomorrow is *FINGERS CROSSED* (Here is where you insert excited, sick, and needs a break 4k teacher squeal) a potential snow day!

My plans for the day if we have off:

ALL of it.  I am going to read it, create a plan, and do what I can to get started!

Check out her blog!  Lots of GREAT ideas.






And if you have time: wear your jammies inside out, flush ONE icecube down the toilet, put a white crayon in the freezer, and sleep with a spoon under your pillow---at least that is what the kids here tell me I have to do.....

what *hopeful* snow day rituals do you have?

Community Helpers

I used Miss Kindergarten's Community Helper unit and I LOVED IT!   
I by no means take credit for the images, fonts, or ideas put into this product.  Please, please, check out her site, follow her blog, and purchase her products from TpT.

It covers MANY helper jobs, and opened many great discussions with the students.  I especially appreciated males and females doing the jobs, having a soldier be a community helper, as well as jobs students may forget: plumber, chef, etc.   

Click on the image/her button to go to her site, click on the link to go to the specific unit.

Using her work, we discussed the many people that help our community.  We also discussed how all these helpers are jobs they can have when they grow up. We took the people/community helpers and matched them to their transportation.  They then placed them under, in front, behind, and over the vehicles they drive.  It was pretty interesting to see some of their thoughts, such as some student put their person on the back of their paper for behind and for under.  Interesting to see their perspective!

I met with the kindergarten teachers (5k) in our district and they suggest that we teach the PROPER formation of the letters before they get to kindergarten.  (I teach 4k so I work with them to make sure I cover what they would like students coming in ready with).  I have been working on this with students, but encourage parents to help them at home as well.  

Almost all letters start on the top (M & N the only exception) and all circle letters (a, d, g, o, q) start at the top and do the circle first.  

 We practiced this at school by doing rainbow writing.  I showed students proper writing of their name, with starter dots, arrows, and sometimes numbers to help with order and then they did it in all the colors of the rainbow making their name rainbow.  

**** Found the correct wording on how to write the letters. Please click HERE It should bring you to a google document.  When you get in the document, you can save it (download) as a PDF.  You can then view, rotate counter clockwise to get a better view.****

Student typing a sight word
while his friends look on.

I wanted to start to incorporate technology for the students.  

Technology is becoming more and more prominent in the students' lives.  One skill important for them to learn is the location of the letters on the keys. We started this by typing the words I can print to put on our word wall and to type their names.  I projected this up on the screen as the students in the class helped us to sound out some of the words.  

Student typing his name, looking for
that letter "o"  Can you tell?  :)

We will begin to do some sign in activities where instead of finding their blue cards, we will type our names onto the lap top.  I will do the best I can to incorporate more technology to get them ready for their future school years as well as the world around them.

Student wrote mv m for movie man

On Wednesday, we talked about any job they picked would  make them a community helper.  We then drew a picture of us working this job, and then tried to write it.  We are then putting this in a class book.  Students are very ambitious and they are doing well coloring (adding details) and trying to write.

This sheet also came from Miss Kindergarten's Community Helper and Transportation Unit.

The topic came up about students always being bigger than some of their siblings because they were born first (a student in our class just found out he is having a baby brother or sister soon!)  I told them that I am the oldest (I was born first) but all my brothers are bigger than me.  I also mentioned that I have FOUR brothers. This amazed them.  I decided to draw a picture for them to help them understand.    

It then turned into a description that not all families are the same and that is ok (my parents are divorced so 1 brother is my full brother, 2 brothers are my mom and step dads, and 1 is my dad and his x-wife's as well as the fact I have 2 dads)

It then led to a discussion on adding details to pictures to make things more descriptive and tell more with our picture.  I explained each person's job and made their clothing match.  (My dad likes blue, my step dad is a plasterer and wears stilts, my oldest brother is very tall like our dad and he also plasters with my step dad and wears stilts, the next brother is a wrestler (high school), the next a power lifter (high school), and the last is also a wrestler different team (high school).  My husband is a pharmacist. 

And then it moved into a discussion on medication safety as my husband is holding an orange medication bottle.

Finally, it turned into a literacy lesson when they helped me sound out my families names (initial sound at least).

Who knew my large family could teach so much!  They had fun, I had fun and I keep giggling at my family photo!

The igloo is FINALLY done!  We have a whole igloo!  We are still collecting a few milk jugs to make a door way, but after this week we can officially say the igloo is done and no more donations are needed!

Kids are having fun playing in the igloo.  I have seen everything from playing house to pretending to be polar bears.  We are still working on (and could use some reminders about) treating the igloo with love.  I have had to replace the front twice and the back twice as well.

** I am not sure if I didn't use enough glue or my kids are just unusually rough with our igloo.  Though it is adorable, the kids love, the parents love, and even the tours coming into our school love it, it is a big pain in my butt.  I think I spend 20 minutes a night re-hot gluing the darn things back together!  Thought it is fun, I cannot say how long it will be up.  I dont plan on doing any more repairs and once it is down, it is down.

**plans for next year to modify:
1. Use a base as the original sight suggests.  I have noticed a big problem with the thing falling apart is their pushing the sides out further and further until a side breaks.
2. More glue
3. More rules?

Parent Communication-Website

GREAT NEWS!  The host site I use for the school website officially has the blogger tool!  This means the blog I use for my weekly newsletters are available on the website!  Parents no longer have to go to two sites for the newsletter and the other information I want to share with them!

I use wix.com for my school site.  I am really enjoying using it!  It has met all my needs, is pretty user friendly, and I think it comes with some pretty good templates.  

Check it out!  http://mrsgloudemans.wix.com/stedward4k

It is what I use for parent communication and information.  What do you think?  Any feedback?

What do you use?  How does it work for you?  

Polar Animals

We started the week with a list of things we know about polar animals.  Students have a pretty good foundation on what they know about polar animals, I was surprised!  They also came up with 2 REALLY good questions!

polar.ppt  We watched the power point (at left) provided by 2TeachingMommies.  We talked about what the polar lands look like (color, most likely feel like being snow and ice, etc).  We then talked about the adaptations fo the animals to be camouflaged.   

The concept of camouflage is not foreign to these students as we are in a big deer hunting area.  We talked about when they are not wearing orange they were camo to look like the woods, that is what the animals do, except their fur already does that!

We also watched this penguin video.  It was very interesting and they really enjoyed it!

For an art project, we made ripped paper penguins.  The template is the fat penguin from MyCuteGraphics.com

This project included using their fine motor skills to rip, pinch, and place on their paper as well as painting in the lines of the template with their glue paint brushes.  Students had to follow mulit-step directions and use their listening skills.  Also, they had to do some counting when I have them 1 piece of yellow and told them it had to make 2 feet and 1 beak. They had to figure out how many pieces to rip from there.  Students did great with them and they turned out even cuter than I had imagined!

Construction continues on the igloo.  Please keep the milk jugs coming!  Students help by holding the jugs together while they dry and then help bring them to the wall to put on.  We are four rows up and will begin the doming of the igloo next!  We are currently waiting on more jumbo hot glue sticks to be purchased to complete the project.  If any parents would be willing to donate the jumbo (fat) high heat glue sticks please let me know.  Thank you! (There is an image on the class website on the wish list page -see link above-of the type of glue sticks as well)

Herbie left us a note saying good bye and how happy he was to be visiting us.  He complimented the children on doing their best to be good little boys and girls.

To start this week of polar animals, we made some fluffy polar bears.  Mix shaving cream and glue 50/50 and you will get shaving cream that dries fluffy!  Students then painted/dabbed the fur on with a paint brush.  The kids loved it and they love that they get to pet their bears.  We worked on our fine motor skills and worked with a new materials.  

image from mycutegraphics.com 

As we are building our igloo we have also been saving our milk caps.  Our friend started sorting the caps by color!

The next day (in a completely different class) This little friend sorted the caps by color and stacked the dinosaurs on top of the caps!

Earlier in the week we had done a sorting small, middle, big  sheet.  In play time, I observed the students making small, middle, big  towers with dinosaurs on top.

I created a little work sheet that worked on scientific thinking.  I will try to to get the sheet on TPT, but I will first have to find images that are appropriate.

The "blubber" is vegetable oil in a ziplock back.  I got actual snow from our playground area. I showed the students that the entire bucket was full of snow and then put the blubber over the top.  

First the students guessed (hypothesized) what they thought would happen when the touched snow with a blubber hand and a plain hand.

The students then tried the experiment out for themselves (experimented).

They then recorded their results (observations) on their sheet.

After doing the experiment we discussed the scientific methods as well as what the results mean for polar animals.  Polar animals have fat and/or blubber to keep warm.  The blubber kept their hands warm just like it keeps the animals warm walking on the snow.  We also discussed how we cannot walk on the snow barefoot because we do not have the fur or the blubber that the polar animals do.

We also practiced walking like a walrus. We had fun,  did some weight bearing exercise, and learned about walrus all at the same time!

We started this week by making a walrus.  I found this Pin on Pinterest.  The woman states that she is unable to give step by step directions due to copyright, so I assume I cannot as well. I have made mine closer to her modification than the very original did so here is a brief overview.  Students cut their small paper plate (it is a thicker material so more difficult to cut), painted a large paper plate, a small paper plate, and the two halves of the small paper plates.   Painting was using our fine motor skills, but also endurance in using this skill as there was so much to paint.  Students then had to follow directions and put two eyes on and two tusks on in the proper location on the head.

We also wrapped up our polar animal unit with making a snow globe.  Found this item on TPT.  I modified it to be more preschool appropriate, but I loved doing it with these kids and they were SOOOO proud of themselves!  

Students cut out the animals and their globes using their fine motor skills--cutting on straight and curved lines.  Students then opened up a ziplock bag and put their animal pieces in--using their fine motor skills and pinching (Animals found on Kids-Pages Website, printed as flashcards in medium size but 9 pages to a page printing).  

They then scooped 2 scoops of hole punched snow  and added 10 shakes of the snow glitter.  

I cut the middle out of paper plates and then stapled: their globe template, their baggies and the paper plate together. I did one staple on stop and one on bottom, leaving the sides room to "bulge" a little as well as little "handles" for them to hold and shake.  

I filled the bags with air to make them more globe like.  If the bag doesn't fit in the middle of the plate (coming through sides), I let some air out.

Once their globes were assembled, students wrote the the sounds they hear when they say "polar" and "animals" writing the P and the A.

Final Product!

Progress continues on the igloo, it is almost done!  We have domed the ceiling and just waiting to close the skylight!  We do have to work on treating the igloo and classroom materials with love.  One of the sides broke out with only 2 days of play!  I will repair the igloo, but hope students will be able to play in the igloo nicely in the next couple of weeks so we can enjoy it.  It is fun to hear the little polar bears, penguins, and families living in the cold in there!

One of our morning work projects was a penguin measuring project I found on Freebie-licious --> which links to to this site: http://livelovelaughkindergarten.blogspot.com/2013/01/win-ipad-mini-nook-or-kindle.html (scroll down).  This project was AWESOME for my students.  I scattered the penguins to be measured around the room, gave them each their own rulers and a data collecting sheets.  When students needed help with the numbers to be written, I could refer them to their own ruler.  This helped in their number recognition, one to one correspondence  counting, and the concept of measuring.