Mathematics

Mathematics in the early years

This fortnight the Foundation team are in charge of the Maths newsletter page, so we thought we would take a moment to focus on our favourite activities for the early years.

Subitising

One maths skill that we love to work on in the early years is 'subitising' (or 'scuba diving' for some of the preppies). This is when your brain quickly knows how many items there are without needing to count them. This skill takes time to develop and can be done with dot cards, tens frames etc. There are also lots of short YouTube videos where kids can practise this skill, like the one below.

Counting Skills

We love that so many families work on counting with their students! If you're looking for ways to support with this we love seeing the following

• 1 to 1 correspondence - counting objects and touching each one to make sure we count accurately
• counting forwards and backwards to 10, then to 20 and beyond
• skip counting by 10s - this really helps with an understanding of place value tens and ones

To teach these skills we use manipulatives, number charts, interactive 100s charts and fun videos.

Addition and Subtraction

Some ideas for lower primary students to support them with addition and subtraction

• Use real world examples by making 'maths moments' e.g. I have 4 strawberries and you have 3. How many all together?'
• Encourage use of physical objects and manipulatives to start with. Kids can count all.
• Move to 'count on' and 'counting back'. E.g. if there are 4 and 3, I can count on from 4 and hold up 3 fingers to track my counting on '5, 6, 7'. Using fingers and manipulatives is a great way to learn about numbers!
• Use number charts and number lines to help counting on and counting back whilst still consolidating the skill
• Play maths games! We love this website - https://www.lovemaths.me/operations-f-2 choose a different game to play each week to help support maths learning