Maths at home...

how can you help?

On Friday 2nd August, Dr Kate Quane from UniSA presented to a fantastic group of eager parents, all wanting hints and tips as to how they can support their child's development in mathematics.

As parents we often wonder how we can support our kids at home, knowing that teaching practices have changed since we were the students in the room. Kate's presentation today focused on the conversations we can have with our children to elicit their thinking and promote thinking deeply about a vast range of topics. It's these thinking skills that support children to make connections between what's learnt at school and what they know, or what they see in the real world.

Simply asking 'What do you notice?' or 'What do you wonder?' about something you see or do will help your child to think about their surroundings and provide comments.

It might be that you're making dinner and you need to measure ingredients, you could be driving and see a big truck 'what might be inside?'. We are surrounded by interesting things every day - how can you bring these into conversations with your children.

A question asked by many parents over time is how their child can move from being at year level expectation to above. When teachers are assessing students they are not just looking for whether they can complete a task or apply a skill in an appropriate context. They are looking for how the student is able to explain their thinking. The verb table below shows a progression of thinking and explanation which aligns to the mathematics curriculum.

As you can see, the higher the level of thinking, the higher the grade achievement. While fluency with numbers and being able to demonstrate knowledge of numbers is important, we want students to be able to explain their thinking processes. This is relevant for all learning areas, particularly within mathematics and science.

If you didn't get a chance to come along this morning to our session, but would like to get resources and view the video from today, please head to the Magill School website at https://www.magillschool.sa.edu.au/teaching-and-learning/numeracy/mathematical-thinking/parent-resources/ and take advantage of the many resources we will be sharing in the coming weeks. The video will take a few days to appear as we edit and get it ready to share, however there are print resources ready for you to download and engage with.

An enormous thank you to all who attended today, and to Dr Kate Quane for sharing her knowledge and experiences.

We look forward to bringing you another maths workshop in 2025!

Kasey Thorne