Week 5 - Mathematics

8 -20

Have a small group of the same objects in treasure baskets, as well as single items, e.g. two fir cones or three shells.

Create a mobile, occasionally changing the number of items you hang on it.

Collect number rhymes which are repetitive and are related to children’s actions and experiences, for example, ‘Peter Hammers with One Hammer’.

www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes  

Use song and rhymes during personal routines, e.g. ‘Two Little Eyes to Look Around’, pointing to their eyes, one by one.

Collect number and counting rhymes from a range of cultures and in other languages.

16 - 26

Use number words in meaningful contexts, e.g. ‘Here is your other mitten. Now we have two’.

Talk about your child’s choices and, where appropriate, demonstrate how counting helps us to find out how many.

Talk about the maths in everyday situations, e.g. doing up a coat, one hole for each button.

Use varied opportunities to explore and talk about  ‘lots’ and ‘few’ in play.

Use role-play areas with things that can be sorted in different ways.

Find things when out for a walk that can be sorted and matched in various ways, e.g. four leaves, six pine cones.

Provide resources that support your child in making one to-one correspondences, e.g. giving each dolly a cup.

22 – 36

Sing counting songs and rhymes which help to develop children’s understanding of number, such as ‘Two Little Dickie Birds’.

www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes  

Play games which relate to number order, addition and subtraction, such as hopscotch and skittles and target games.

Find props for your child to act out counting songs and rhymes.

Use different opportunities during the day to count items.

30 – 50

Use number language, e.g. ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, ‘lots’, ‘fewer’, ‘hundreds’, ‘how many?’ and ‘count’ in a variety of situations.

To support your child’s developing understanding of abstraction by counting things that are not objects, such as hops, jumps, clicks or claps.

Model counting of objects in a random layout, showing the result is always the same as long as each object is only counted once.

Model and encourage use of mathematical language e.g.  asking questions such as ‘How many saucepans will fit on the shelf?’

Help your child to understand that one thing can be shared by number of pieces, e.g. a pizza, cake and note the ‘missing set’, e.g. ‘There are none left’ when sharing things out.

As you read number stories or rhymes, ask e.g. ‘When one more frog jumps in, how many will there be in the pool altogether?’

If you have space you can mark parking spaces on the ground and by putting a number label on each bike you have they can correspond with the number on each parking space.

Include counting money and change in role-play games.

Create opportunities for your child to separate objects into unequal groups as well as equal groups.

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