Category Archives: Curriculum resources

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

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Before our recent Mathematics input, I had never considered using stories as a way of exploring mathematical language and concepts. I’m sure most people would agree that stories are first and foremost thought of as something linked to literacy and language. However, after reading the well-known Dr Seuss book, “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish” I was amazed by how many mathematical concepts could be covered if this short story was unpicked.

The first obvious concept that is addressed by this book is counting but there are also many others. Below I have highlighted the main mathematical concepts that could be explored through this book, based on the mathematical language used by the author.

 

Counting, Addition and Subtraction:

  • One, two, three, four etc.
  • Take (subtraction, numbers less than)
  • More (addition, numbers greater than)

Time:

  • Today
  • Tomorrow
  • Every day
  • Was (concept of the past)
  • Long (length of time)

Speed:

  • Fast
  • Slow

Distance:

  • Here
  • There
  • High
  • Low
  • Near
  • Far

Temperatures:

  • Hot
  • Cold

Shapes:

  • Kite
  • Box
  • Ring
  • Fat
  • Thin
  • Little
  • Long
  • In/out (looking at 3D shapes and volume/depth)

Directions:

  • Up
  • Right
  • Left
  • Pull

Measuring

  • Grow
  • Long
  • Some
  • Lot

There are many props/ resources that can be used to aid the exploration of these different concepts in a story telling setting. As this story covers many different aspects I am going to focus on Counting, Addition and Subtraction. One great resource to help children in the early years with these concepts are counting bears (see image).

Image from http://www.earlyyearsresources.co.uk/numeracy-c46/data-handling-c326/counting-bears-p10999

As this story talks about different colours, the bears allow children to see that counting can be done with objects that look the same but also objects that are different. Instead of “One fish, two fish” you could say “One bear, two bears…” and start by counting on. If the children are ready to move on to counting backwards the bears can be counted back into the tub. Language such as “Take two bears away” or “Add one more” can link the language used in the story directly to the activity.

Number lines are also great resources for counting , adding and subtracting as they act as a good visual for children. Without these visual representations, counting can be seen as quite an abstract concept and some children simply start by learning the number sequence 1-10 before seeing the relevance of each number.

The type of question used to assess children’s understanding might be, “If I have three bears and add on four more bears, how many will I now have?” This models the kind of mathematical language that is expected and, depending on their answer, shows if a child has understood the concept or not.

Google it!

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https://animoto.com/play/JZR8xafJvrvdtoIOs1x4xA

In our second technology workshop we discussed accessing, retrieving and presenting information from the internet and how we can teach children about internet safety. We looked at different websites, including fake websites, which give false information on certain topics.This could be an issue if pupils are asked to do a research task, therefore it is important to explain to children that they cannot trust everything they read.

An ICT skill that can be taught when thinking about internet safety is Boolean Searching. This is a way of being more selective, when looking for information, through the use of quotation marks and by putting the word ‘and’ between search words. This narrows down the huge number of searches that appear when you ‘Google’ something.

We often use the phrase, “I’ll just Google it!” when we are actually referring to looking up a piece of information. There are many other search engines that can be shown to children such as:

When looking at presenting information we were shown three different resources; Fakebook, Prezi and Animoto- which I used to make the video at the top of this blog post. These are great classroom resources as children can present their research findings in an interactive and engaging way, rather than simply making a poster or filling out a worksheet.