Winning, Losing and Math

 We recently had the children sign in with a question.

"What Kind of Ice Cream Do you Like Better?  Vanilla or Chocolate?"

Later in the day, we looked at the names on the paper and we gathered around a graph with the numbers 1-10 across the bottom and the words "Vanilla" and Chocolate" on the sides.
We then transferred the data from the sign in sheet to the graph by giving the children a brown or white square to place on the graph.

As we were in the process of figuring out which flavor was winning, there were some hurt feelings on the side of the losing flavor.  What an excellent opportunity to discuss competition!!

We explained that games are fun.  When you are playing them, you are excited, and many people who play games are very interested in winning them.  If you are playing a game and having fun, why is it so bad if you lose?  We discovered that if you win, it was fun while you were playing.  Also, even when you lose, it was still fun when you were playing.  So, what you do to remember that it was fun, is this...Wether you win or lose, you say to the others who played, "Good game."  It turns out that it is okay to win games, and it is okay to lose games.  You don't have to like losing games, but it is important to be nice.  So if you win, say, "Good game."  If you lose, say, "Good game", and remember that you had fun playing.

(Congress needs to go back to Kindergarten:-)

We look forward to exploring more graphs in the near future...