numeracy and mathematics – Page 3

Learning As We Bake

Learning to follow instructions, such as counting and measuring ingredients, is essential when following a recipe, and therefore baking helps to develop the children’s “Numeracy and Mathematics” and listening skills while prediction, observation and discussion about the potential changes to their ingredients, as they are mixed and baked, develop their learning in “Sciences”. These happy little bakers also learned to use the mixer and set the oven to develop their understanding in “Technologies” so this baking session provided so much learning in one activity. Best of all, of course, is the all important tasting session once the cakes are baked.

Money Matters

As the children in both Nursery rooms requested shops in their role play areas recently, it was a great opportunity to develop their learning about coins. As you can see, some were able to match coins and discuss what we use money for. The next step in learning will be to recognise and name some coins which a few are beginning to be able to do. You could perhaps take the opportunity when out and about in the holidays to talk about different coins with your child? This is certainly an area of maths that most children show great enthusiasm for so they will probably be keen to show off their knowledge.

Paint Patterns

Experimenting to make footprints with paint was great fun in the Raindrop Room garden last term as the children compared patterns, sizes and a number of different colours. The end results made a great display – have you noticed some of the children’s footprints hanging outside?

Animals, Autumn And Art

The Rainbow Room visited the school nature area several times towards the end of term as part of their interest in animals as well as the changing season. As you can see, they all enjoyed listening to “Rumble in the Jungle” and then set off on a hunt to search for animals in the nature area which was very exciting.
After a tasty outdoor snack, the children talked about the signs around them that Autumn was on its way and gathered some evidence which they all shared in their discussion together about their findings.
Once back in Nursery, some of the children made super art work from their finds in our outdoor area which looks great displayed in the mud kitchen hanging from the shelter. Great teamwork and enthusiasm were evident from these children in this activity and we think that they must certainly have gone home tired that day.

STEM Learning With Your Child

STEM stands for science, technologies, engineering and mathematics which are all areas of learning in Nursery. If you take a look at the STEM displays in each room, you can get a taste of all the different activities the children enjoy which are developing their knowledge, understanding, curiosity, creativity and enthusiasm in these areas.
To help you understand how you can support these areas of your child’s learning at home, we have added a link on the right under “Useful Reading: STEM for Parents”. Click on the link for information from Education Scotland and have fun learning with your child.

Family Maths Activities

Sophie E.’s family has been looking at our photos of our Family Maths Activity event last week:

“Really enjoyed coming in and doing the activities with sophie. Great ideas for learning at home.”

Thank you for joining us for National Maths Week. Its good to hear that we gave you some ideas for learning at home.

Maths Learning

Seth’s family has been looking at the photos of our family activities for National Numeracy Week:

“Seth had a great time learning about maths he loved the ipads”

We are glad that you enjoyed our little event. It was great to see so many parents and families joining in. The I-pads were certainly one of the most popular activities according to your feedback sheets.

National Maths Week Fun

Thank you to those families who joined us this week for our fun activities to celebrate National Maths Week. It was lovely to see our parents, grandparents and carers playing together with the children on a range of Maths activities. Thank you also for completing our evaluation sheets which are useful in indicating which activities were the most popular and to Eileen, our Family Learning Co-ordinator, for organising our event. We hope that we have given you some ideas of how to develop your child’s learning at home.

Click then click again on photos for a closer look.

Learning Is Fun

Baking provides so many opportunities for learning and the children love taking part in it. Apart from turn-taking, sharing, good listening and working as a team, the children can develop their knowledge and skills in several other areas of the curriculum.
Counting and measuring, essential when following a recipe, are “Numeracy and Mathematics” skills while prediction, observation and discussion about the potential changes to their ingredients, as they are mixed and cooked, is an area of “Sciences”. The children are also developing their understanding in “Technologies” as they learn how to use a mixer and the cooker.
Here the children were making chocolate chip cookies and it was wonderful to see their excitement and enthusiasm as they went through the process and then enjoyed tasting what they had produced. Learning can be such fun!

Click then click again on photos to make them bigger.

Young Engineers

To help with counting skills outdoors, some of the children have been busy using the resources they could find in Nursery to make their own counting string. Making holes in the bottle tops was tricky but was a great activity to help develop the children’s fine motor skills as was the threading of them on to string. We think that this little group has shown themselves to be great little engineers and love the counting line that now hangs in the outdoor area for everyone to play with.