This term, the children have been working on solving addition and subtraction tasks using concrete materials like counters, blocks, Numicon and more. These hands-on tools help the children visualise and understand the concepts in a more concrete way before moving onto pictorial and abstract problems.
By physically moving objects, the children can “see” the math which makes it easier to grasp how numbers can be combined or separated. Concrete materials build confidence, deepen understanding and make learning more engaging. The children were working on using Numicon to make number pairs and visually represent how numbers can be made up of different pairs – in this example, the children were making all the different number pairs to make 6.
Here, the children were using base 10 blocks to represent the jumping strategy in addition; they would use the blocks to represent jumps of 10 or 1 to solve 2 digit + 2 digit sums and missing number problems. The children have managed to transfer this understanding into subtraction tasks too!
The children have enjoyed the hands-on approach in numeracy and feel more confident in their numeracy skills! We will continue using concrete materials in all our learning to help boost our skills and confidence!
