Committees
Mathematics
As we head into Term 4 after a challenging year, the staff at Mackellar Primary School would like to take the opportunity to recognise the fundamental work and role the Mackellar community has played in supporting the developing needs of our students. As your child’s first teacher, you play an important role in helping develop their academic skills from an early age.
At Mackellar Primary School, staff are committed to providing your children with the best teaching and learning practices. In the subject of Mathematics, our work focusses on allowing students to understand the purpose of the skill being developed, building their understanding through materials and making connections to how those concepts are used in real life. We understand that families in our community are keen to continue to support our students’ development at home and continue to foster continuity between home and school life.
This edition’s committee article will offer some resources and practical ideas provided by the Victorian Government’s Department of Education and Training that families may choose to use at home to continue to support students’ development of numeracy skills in their real life.
Why are numeracy skills important?
Numeracy skills give children an important start to their learning and development. They also help prepare them for daily life at all ages. For example, in handling money and problem solving. Numeracy helps us understand and use numbers and other mathematical ideas in everyday life, recognise and use shape, work out the chance of something happening and understand the data we see in the media.
Numeracy is necessary for everyday living. From daily activities like telling the time, cooking and setting the table to more difficult tasks such as understanding mobile phone plans, planning a trip, reading a map and understanding timetables.
What resources are available?
Numeracy guide: numeracy at home
This interactive online guide helps your child to learn numeracy and mathematics at home, identifies and talks about some common myths about maths, suggests helpful activities you can do with your child and has a range of fun activities that you can try together based on your child’s interests and experiences.
This resource provides some ideas for how families can raise awareness and share mathematics using everyday experiences and resources found around your home. It includes ideas for supporting your children’s learning in all areas of mathematics: number and algebra, measurement and geometry and statistics and probability.
The Victorian Maths Challenge is a fun and engaging way for families to engage in real life mathematics and explore problems together. There are challenges relevant to all student levels along with information on strategies that support problem solving. Take on as many challenges as you would like!
We hope you find these resources engaging for your children and family unit. Feel free to contact the school for further clarification on using these resources or to share your experiences, photos or stories. We would love to see and hear them.
Shelley Wockner
Mathematics Learning Specialist