Formative Assessments in Kindergarten

As a teacher in kindergarten, I consider that is very important to include formative assessments in the lessons to check the students understanding, especially before the students start their independent work. In this blog I am going to share some examples of formative assessment in a math lesson in kindergarten.

The objective of the lesson is: 

Students will be able to identify the total in an addition problem using their fingers.

Picture by: http://www.special-and-determined.com/

Formatives assessments:

1. Ask the students to show with their fingers the total of an addition problem. This formative assessments could be implemented at the beginning of the explanation to check the previous knowledge of the students. The teacher can observe the students responds to introduce the topic. Also, the teacher can observe if he need use more time in the explanation because the majority of the students had difficulties to use their fingers to solve the problem.
2. After the explanation, the teacher can invite the students to solve some addition problems using their fingers with a partner and record the results in a small white board. This formative assessment help the teacher to check the understanding of the students. When the students finish, the teacher invite some students to share the results and explain the process to obtain it. The teacher can observe the students work and re-teach some concepts if it is necessary. Also, the teacher can observe if the students are ready to work independently.
3. During the independent work the teacher could use the observation of student’s work as a formative assessment. The teacher could have a class list while he/she observes the students and checks if the students reach the objectives. The information collected with this information is useful to plan next actions, for example create a small group to practice more or plan some activities to reinforce previous skills learned. 

Picture by: www.theappliciousteacher.com