Maths

Measurement and Geometry

Students will engage with hands-on activities where they will compare objects to decide which is longer or shorter, heaver or lighter, larger or smaller or holds more or less.

Much of the second semester will have a length and capacity focus where students will experiment with measuring using varied objects such as counters, beans, water, rice and blocks. Children will be able to choose the best unit for measuring, using only one object at a time. Using familiar everyday objects, students will experiment with measuring the length of different shapes and surfaces and will investigate the impacts of gaps and overlaps in measuring and their impact on the total length.

Reception students will have the opportunity to investiagte how much an object can hold and will begin to make comparisons between objects, 

understanding that the size and width of the container affects its capacity. 

Together the students will be involved in constructing word walls with key measurement vocabulary such as length, gap, overlap, shortest, short, tall, narrow wide, empty, half empty, full, half full, nearly full, nearly empty, least and most.

Students will inquire into the days of the week and engage with activities where they will place them in order and link specific days to familiar routines (e.g. School days, weekend).

Number and Algebra

We will be focusing on further developing the children’s understanding of number and algebra from the Australian Curriculum. We will continue to use the Natural Maths Secret Code strategies to explain their thinking.

Children will consolidate their understanding of:

Subitising – immediately recognising how many items in a small group without counting.

Counting On – understanding that the counting sequence can be continued from any starting point. Children need to remember to always count on from the largest number. For example, if there were 4 apples and 2 more apples, they need to subitise the 4 and count on 2 more.

Playing dice games and dominoes with your children will further support their understanding of these strategies at home.

Children will be explicitly taught the Secret Code Strategies:

Rainbow Facts- pairs of numbers that add up to 10 (9&1, 6&4 etc)

Doubles-  identifying objects/numbers that occur in pairs automatically, e.g. (5 and 5, 4 and 4, 2 and 2).

Skip Counting- by 2's, 5's and 10's.

Children will develop their understanding of these strategies with the support of playing-card games and dominoes to develop their automaticity.

Once again, if you have a pack of playing cards at home you can play some of these maths games with your children. The students will be able to teach you to consolidate thier learning!

Songs such as "Friends of 10" and "Doubles Song" can be accessed on Youtube to consolidating their understanding of Rainbow Facts and Doubles.

Children will also be taught card games such as “Fishy Rainbow”, a great card game to play with the family.

Problematised Situations

Reception students will continue to use their problem solving skills and apply these to measurement, location, shape and number problems. They will continue to develop their recording skills to visually show how measurements were taken as well as having an opportunity to apply thier secret code strategies such as couting on an rainbow facts in an authentic situation.

Statistics and Probability

Children will be involved in a variety of maths learning activities around data representation and interpretation. They will explore answering yes/no questions to collect information about their world around them. They will be introduced to tallies and investigate how to represent and analyse pictorial graphs.

Location and Transformation

The children will use the everyday language of location and direction, such as ‘between’, ‘near’, ‘next to’, ‘forwards’, ‘towards’ to describe where an object is.

Children will have opportunities to give simple directions through games and activities.

Through Discovery Time they will create buildings, roads, cities, jungles etc and guide each other or objects through.

Through physical activity and activities like obstacle courses and mazes, students will give clear directions to guide others through successfully!