Woodthorpe Church of England Primary School

Maths in the Early Years

Maths is an important part of learning for all children in the Early Years. At Woodthorpe, we aim to prepare all children with essential mathematical skills life skills.

Familiarising maths to Early Years children helps to develop their understanding of all elements of problem solving and reasoning in a wide range of contexts. Maths in the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum comes under two strands:

• Numbers: Children count reliably with numbers from one  to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.
• Shape, Space and Measures: Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them. As with all other areas of learning, the teaching and learning of mathematics in our Reception class takes place both indoors and outdoors through a wide range of practical activities. All Teachers/Teaching assistants use their knowledge and expertise to plan for a high quality learning environment which provides children with lots of opportunities to explore different aspects of number and shape, space and measures and learn new concepts.

The children have a wide range of structured play resources available to them throughout the year - this is known as "continuous provision". For example, children may learn about measurement through their topic mini-beasts, using different resources to measure/weigh mini-beasts they have found both indoors and outdoors. In addition to the opportunities for child initiated play indoors and outdoors, Teachers and Teaching assistants plan adult led activities for groups of children and individuals based on their observations of what children know and can do. They plan activities to address any misconceptions that have arisen and to introduce new concepts. Through adult led activities children are introduced to a range of visual representations to understand a concept in greater depth and gain mastery.

At Woodthorpe, we use we use Numicon as a concrete resource to teach number and place value. Numicon helps children to visualise numbers. The different coloured Numicon shapes represent different numbers. Numicon is multi-sensory. Children can touch as well as see the numbers. From this visual picture they are able to see how we can add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers and the relationships between them. Numicon allows our children to ‘see’ number; make connections; see patterns; and show what they are explaining giving children a deeper understanding of number.

We have been looking at 10 frames and number bonds to 10 in maths. Have a look at our huge 10 frame!