This week we would like to share with you some of the ways the children have been developing their numeracy skills recently. Numeracy is being able to understand and use numbers in a range of situations. Learning numeracy skills happens everywhere, both at home and in the setting, indoors and outdoors. Play is an excellent avenue through which we learn and develop important numeracy skills.

Developing a sense of size and amount is an important numeracy skill.

Maisie and William compared the number of animals they had on their “team” and discussed which animals were strongest, biggest and smallest.

Harry listened to how many scoops of sand it took to fill the blue bucket. It was a big number of scoops – over 10!

Micah, Henry and Max discussed whether they needed long rectangular blocks or shorter ones for their construction. After a bit of discussion, sharing ideas and looking again at what they were building they decided that they needed both sizes but in different areas.

Emmie made some playdough cakes. She used the number cutters and made the same amount of cakes as the number before dishing them up.

A group of children spent time in the sand digging a “very big, huge trench”. They worked together, took turns digging and discussed the depth of trench they wanted as the work progressed.

Being interested in, and having fun with, exploring numbers is a great way to learn more about them. Through play with numbers we learn that they represent quantities and that we can use them to count, create sequences and describe order.

All children have chosen to play games that help number recognition, understanding of quantity, counting and ordering through playing “Topmarks” games. These can be accessed at home too. Just simply google “Topmarks numeracy games”.

Our recent interest in caterpillars and has seen us choose some number caterpillar number games to play. These games have led to a lot of discussion around which numbers are needed to complete the caterpillar and have helped develop our number ordering skill. Playing group number games helps us to share our number knowledge with each other and to learn from each other.

 

Discussing the numbers on the stones was an important part of this stone wall construction as it was decided that the smaller numbers should be at the bottom of the wall. It took perseverance, problem solving and a lot of discussion around numbers before the wall was built .

Exploring the shape of numbers, having a go writing them or making marks to symbolise numbers and being aware that numbers are different from letters are all important for numeracy development.

 

Indoor and outdoor number hunts and games are good fun as well as a great way to learn. The girls listened carefully to Ali as he called the number out and then ran to the hoops that had that number inside, they were very pleased to find all the hoops with numbers!

 

Max and William shook a dice and then found the corresponding number of lids to put in their container. The first person to fill the container was the winner. They double checked after each game by counting and comparing the number of lids each other had “won”.

Being able to count on and back is important as it helps develop understanding of addition and subtraction.

William practiced counting how many pigs he had by starting at one end and counting along the lines. We discussed how many he had when we took the baby pigs away.

Elsie created a caterpillar using sticks for legs. She counted the eyes and the legs on her caterpillar.

Lewis and Sophia spent time counting steps. The counted backwards and forwards as they went up and down the steps. A great way to exercise as well as develop our counting skills!

Playing “5 speckled frogs” has been a good way to develop our addition and subtraction skills. Starting with 5 frogs on a log and ending up with 0. Emmie enjoyed being last frog to leap into the water.

Through play, and real life contexts, we develop awareness of what money is and how it is used. Having opportunities in play to talk about prices, to exchange objects and to use a range of coins helps us develop our understanding of money.

Ertie caught a selection of seafood this week. He took it up to the “peerie hoose cafe” where he sold if for “one hundred million pounds”.

Ross and Jordie created a “police station” recently. Prisoners had to pay different amounts of money to be released.

Coins in the tuff spot recently helped create much discussion around the different numbers on the coins and what that meant. They were used to match amounts, as exchange for the number of lids, as treasure to be collected and much more! They were taken to the home corner and throughout the nursery as part of different types of play.

Experimenting with measure, learning mathematical language such as big, small, short, tall, long, heavy, light, and investigating and comparing sizes and amounts are important numeracy skills.

Ali used the tape measure to see how wide the table was before building on it, he found out that it was a big number!

Maggie measured how much of the tube could fit into the hole. She realised that as she pushed it in the bit she was holding was getting “peerier and peerier” shorter and shorter.

David discovered that the dinosaur was too big and too heavy to fit on the boat and that the boat stayed afloat when smaller objects went aboard.

During construction this site was closed off by two “no entry” cones followed by “safety” cones around the perimeter. The children discussed the site, measured it’s size using their steps, counted the cones and worked together to “make it safe” so that they could focuss on the build.

Micah, Henry and Lewis worked together to collect pieces of wood that were the same size and length fo finish off their “bonfire”. They discussed, compared and shared what they found before putting them into the back of the truck. The wood was then transported across to the building area.

William explored which containers filled up the large jug the fastest and after a bit of investigating opted for the bigger jug with the spout.

An important part of numeracy learning in the early years is being able to enjoy investigating objects and shapes, sorting them, matching, describing them and being creative with them.

James and Jackson worked together to fill a container. By sharing their ideas and investigating different objects for pouring they found that the funnel shape stopped water from pouring over the sides.

James spent a long time building a car this week. He chose a box with “rectangle sides that are long” and then hammered in wooden circles for wheels.

Jackson used a lot of small cubes to make one large “rubix cube”.

Ali used large and small hollow blocks to make a house. He lay the base blocks horizontally and the side blocks vertically and then investigated adding other shapes on top to make an interesting design.

Lewis, James and Freya created a “skateboard ramp” by using the shapes of the blocks to create a steep angle which they could slide down.

Lottie, Ertie, William and Ali sorted both living and non living insects at the table. They discussed the insects features with each other and drew pictures of what they had found.

Freya sorted and matched orange circles and black circles to make a picture of a caterpillar in a thunder storm.

Maisie made soup using only the red and green vegetables.

And finally we had a few birthdays this week but Jordie’s birthday fell on a day that he was in nursery which meant we could celebrate with cakes! Even a birthday is an opportunity for numeracy learning! Getting another year older, talking about the date and month, and celebrating the day helps children realise that routines and events in their world link with times, months and seasons. It was also a great way to practice our counting skills as we counted the total number of cakes to make sure there was enough for everyone and counted how many candles Jordie got to blow out 🙂