Overview of learning 3

Example of mathematics planning and resourcing 3

What we want children to learn (Development matters)

Objectives in bold refer to Early Learning Goals.

Mathematics objectives

Estimate how many objects they can see and check by counting
Count reliably up to 10 everyday objects

Using and applying mathematics

Use developing mathematical ideas and methods to solve practical problems

Related Early Learning Goals

Respond in a variety of ways to what they see, hear, smell, touch and feel (CD)

Possible contexts

Use collections of rhymes, songs, storybooks and props.
Provide a variety of objects and collections for children to sort, match and incorporate into play.
Use clipboards inside and outside in the learning environment and encourage children's mark making of numbers of objects.
Use washing lines to match objects, and encourage children to find collections of objects to set their own challenges.
Engage in games and 'small world' play throughout the day and challenge children to estimate quantities and check the number by counting, for example the number of children on the climbing frame; the number of apples in the fruit box; the number of pens in the pot.
Develop interactive displays of objects with number cards for matching, moving and reordering.
When tidying up, pay attention to numbers of objects, for example cutlery, construction equipment and garden tools.

Example of adult-led activity

Context: Using a storybook

Read the story with the children, for example Handa's Surprise. Have a basket of the fruit, count them in the basket and illustrate the story as each one is taken.

Provide opportunities for the children to retell the story, for example children telling each other from the book, using toy animals and fruit to act out the story or scan the pages of the story into interactive whiteboard software or into PowerPoint as an electronic book.

Tell the children they can use the fruit to make fruit kebabs. (There are eight types of fruits and animals in Handa's Surprise. Add two to reinforce counting to 10.) Say that the kebabs can have one piece of each kind of fruit. If they don't like some of the types of fruit, they can swap them for ones they do like but they mustn't have more than the number of types of fruit available (10). Encourage their methods in problem solving to work out how many pieces of each fruit they are putting on their kebab when they are leaving some kinds out.

Welcome the children's different ways of recording their recipes for their own kebabs. Share with them how they have represented their different types of fruit and how many they had of each. Count together and see that each kebab was made up of 10 pieces of fruit.

Make a pictogram (could use 2count from the 2simple Infant Video Toolbox) to find out which was the favourite and which was the least favourite fruit.

Adult role

Model counting in everyday experiences.
Use a puppet to count wrongly and encourage the children to correct.
Demonstrate counting accurately during group activities. For example: how many cups do we need? 1, 2, 3...
Scaffold children's learning by helping them to count accurately in their own play.
Participate in all areas of children's experience and model counting for a purpose. For example: how many wheels are we going to need on this car?
Encourage children to make guesses about numbers and then check. For example: let's guess how many objects there are in this box.

Opportunities for children to explore and apply

In construction and 'small world' play, provide plans for models using photographs or children's own models showing numbers of objects, for example 4 wheels or 10 pieces of straight track.
Use photographs of numbers of objects and their numerals in the learning environment for children to collect and match when tidying, for example numbers of items of cutlery, cups and plates or construction tools.
Provide clipboards inside and outside in the learning environment and model uses for shopping lists, recording measurements of, for example, sunflowers growing, turn taking and children waiting, planning picnics/parties, numbers of skips or jumps or other achievements.
Provide a collection of counting rhymes, songs and storybooks and tapes or CD-ROMs with props. Encourage children to make their own. Model uses and encourage children to share in similar ways with each other.
Use interactive whiteboard software to re-create stories using numbers of objects, for example 'Goldilocks and the three bears'.
Make a wide variety of collections available for children to sort, match and incorporate into play, and to hide and find.
Model games for them, for example dropping objects into a tin and guessing their number by listening to the sounds or asking how many of each object will fit into a matchbox.
Use dice and domino numbers to help with the visual pattern of numbers. Children begin, for example, to see the patterns of four as two twos, and six as two threes.

Adult role

Model counting in everyday experiences.
Use a silly puppet to count wrongly and encourage the children to correct.
Demonstrate counting accurately.
Scaffold children's learning by helping them to count accurately.
Participate in all areas of children's experience and model counting for a purpose. For example: how many wheels are we going to need on this car?
Encourage children to make guesses about numbers and then check. For example: let's guess how many objects there are there in this box.

Look, listen and note

Observe how children count an irregular arrangement of up to 10 objects. For example: as Zara dropped pennies noisily into the tin, she said, 'Listen for how many.'
Note how children count out up to six objects from a larger group. For example, when a group of children were doing a jigsaw together, they shared out the pieces and counted to check everyone had the same number.
Notice how children represent numbers using fingers, marks on paper or pictures. For example: Kim and Edward made a number track to 10. They then added numbers to 17 when they realised they could throw the beanbag further than they had expected.

Assessment opportunities

Encourage children to join in rhymes and songs and notice how they are able to count, for example, five little ducks, ten green bottles, five little speckled frogs, five currant buns. Use a puppet to 'speak' and get numbers wrong, encouraging children to correct the puppet.
Use collections of objects and everyday materials to count, for example when tidying things back into containers or baskets.