This week our Blog follows on from High Quality Literacy Gatherings by Frances McMahon and looks at how we can explore maths and numeracy through quality gatherings.
Across Falkirk Council there are many fantastic examples of early maths and numeracy experiences taking place daily through high quality spaces, interactions, and experiences. Adult-led gatherings happen both organically as we respond to our learners as well as through intentional planning. Carefully planned adult-led experiences which are playful are important as part of a balanced approach to play pedagogy. Adult-led experiences in maths and numeracy allow children to develop their thinking and extend their skills and knowledge. More information o adult-led gatherings can be found here The importance of high quality gatherings – Falkirk Early Learning (glowscotland.org.uk)
Below are some ideas for adult led gatherings to develop children’s core maths and numeracy skills.
Supporting Matching, Sorting and Classifying
Scavenger Hunt – provide an exciting container for children to go off and collect interesting items from their environment then talk about their collections with others.
Investigative provocations – Create an investigation area for sorting. Provide a different collection every week. Considering things that stretch, roll, make noise, have holes.
Kim’s game – Children guess the item that’s missing to develop their matching skills
Supporting Shape
Make patterns of sounds – using musical instruments or claps beginning with 2 sounds and encourage children to copy.
In dance and movement activities, create repeated patterns for children to copy. Provide visual aids to allow children to create their own repeated patterns of movements.
Silhouette symmetry – Use a torch to reflect outlines of symmetrical objects on to a wall. Encourage children to guess what it could be or pin paper on the wall for them to mark out the shape.
Chalking and Walking – Draw or tape 2D shapes using large chalks. Encourage the children to walk, stride, hop or skip round the shape while commenting on the attributes of the shape e.g. that triangle has 3 corners, the rectangle has 2 long sides and 2 short sides.
Weaving, sewing and printing experiences using 2D and 3D materials.
Supporting Measure
Measure all around us – Children can select items in their environment to measure. E.g. How many steps does it take to get from one place to another?
Baking by Measure – We know that cooking, in particular, baking are great experiences to support early measures. Using scales, jugs, spoons etc.
Supporting Position and Movement
Instructional games provide children with the opportunity to understand position and movement e.g. 2 steps forwards, 3 steps sideward.
Chalk, paint or tape down roads, tracks or shapes for children to move around with their bodies, bikes, prams or small world toys such as cars.
Action games and rhymes provide children with the opportunity to refine moment skills where children can demonstrate for each other.
Developing knowledge of movement and position through fine motor play e.g. playdough, threading, bead pictures, small world play etc.
Experiences taken from Falkirk Council Natural Numeracy Self-Led CLPL
Maths Through Stories, Songs and Rhymes
Stories are an invaluable resource for extending children’s learning in maths and numeracy. There are many stories with explicit themes and there are others which allow children to develop their understanding through the context of the story. A story time gathering may also lead into other gatherings as children share experiences of the characters in real life. Eg – creating maps to go a treasure hunt or baking a cake like the character in the story. For more information on maths through stories check out MathsThroughStories.org – HOME and Books that support numeracy – Scottish Book Trust.
Songs and rhymes help children develop important numeracy skills through rhythm, beat, sequence and repetition. Songs and rhymes which encourage number and counting should be a staple part of young learners’ time in Early Years. Action songs, dancing and yoga also encourages the development of numeracy and mathematical skills.
This is not an exhaustive list of ideas to develop early maths and numeracy skills within ELC’S, please feel free to leave a comment of any other adult led literacy activities that have worked well in your setting or tweet about them.
For more information on how to develop core numeracy skills please refer to the Natural Numeracy CLPL which can be found on Falkirk Early Learning – CLPL and Local Information (sharepoint.com)
