Inside Ivanhoe

IPS Tips 

F - Year 2 (approximately)- DOING MATHS TOGETHER AT HOME.

A child’s first years are a time of rapid learning. Research tells us that babies have an innate capacity to understand numbers. As your child’s first teacher, you play a key role in developing their numeracy skills from an early age.

 

Developing numeracy skills early gives children an important foundation for their learning and development. It helps prepare them for daily life, including general problem solving and handling money.

 

Maths includes noticing numbers, shapes, patterns, size, time and measurement. Incorporating maths into everyday experiences is easy and fun. Maths is everywhere – in the playground, at the shops and at home.

 

Children need lots of experiences in making, counting, drawing and talking about numbers. The activities in this section will help your child to develop these skills. You may feel the maths your child is doing at school is different from how you were taught, but you can still support your child in many ways. Make connections for your child by explaining how numbers and counting are a part of everyday life.

Counting

Counting is one of the first experiences of maths for young children.

 

Learning to say numbers often begins with a favourite song or rhyme and the repetition of the number names. Children will often say the numbers before they visually recognise and identify individual numbers.

 

Here are some activities and tips to engage your child with counting:

  • Listen for the counting sequence in these songs and rhymes, which can all be found on www.youtube.com:
    • Five Little Ducks
    • Ten in the Bed
    • 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught a FishAlive
    • Ten Green Bottles
    • Five Little Monkeys
    • 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe
  • Children will begin by counting all objects in a group, for example fingers and toes, the buttons on their clothes, steps to the house, or their toys.
  • As children move on to counting a set of objects, they begin to link each object with one number. In the beginning, encourage your child to touch each object as they say the matching number.
  • When beginning to count a group of objects, children may need to arrange the objects in a line to help them count. Later they will be able to start counting from any object without arranging the objects.
  • Once your child is confident, use different numbers as the starting point for practising counting. For example, start counting from 6 or 10. Ask your child to count forwards and backwards. Ask what number comes before, or what number comes after, a given number.

Year 3 - 6 (approximately)- EXPLORING NUMERACY WITH YOUR CHILD.

Family participation in learning is one of the most accurate predictors of a child’s success in school and beyond.

 

Providing opportunities to discuss and engage in mathematics supports your child’s learning in and out of school. Your child will also begin to connect the importance of maths with their everyday activities, such as navigating public transport, comparing and choosing the best item to buy in stores, setting a budget, and cooking.

 

Talk positively about maths so your child also values it. If your experiences in maths at school were less than ideal, avoid making comments like “I was bad at maths at school,” or “I didn’t like maths because it was too hard.” Comments like these can lower your child’s expectations of themselves, and can perpetuate myths about people being naturally bad or good at maths.

 

Conversely, if you did well at maths in school, avoid jumping in with answers or solutions. Encourage your child to talk about how they might work out maths problems. This helps boost their confidence and deepens their understanding.

 

Regardless of your own school experiences in maths, be reassured that maths today is not about learning by rote. Today, the focus is on recognising that there are multiple ways to get an answer, and being able to explain how and why you chose the approach you did.

 

There are many activities you can do at home to help explore maths with your child. When participating in these activities, avoid associating them with speed. Expecting your child to work quickly on maths can cause maths anxiety. 

 

Try to focus on the process and not the outcome.

Watching the weather

Because it changes daily, the weather can be a great topic to discuss maths with your child.

 

Try these activities:

  • Visit the Bureau of Meteorology website 
  • Ask your child the difference between each day’s minimum and maximum temperatures. Do they notice a pattern or trend in the weather changes?
  • Find a seven-day forecast, then record the actual temperature for each day and compare. Ask your child if the forecast was accurate. Ask them what similarities and differences they notice.
  • Use the information on the weather website to explore differences in weather between your area and other areas. Ask your child how much rain you get compared to other areas. Ask your child to identify differences in temperature between your area and other areas. Who might be affected by an increase or decrease in rainfall?