Numeracy

Numeracy - Thinking about Numbers, Quantity and Partitioning

Our students have been learning about numbers and quantities throughout term one. They have worked on understanding how quantities can be partitioned in different ways.

Here are some tips for keeping their brains working over the break:

* Ask your child to bring you a number of objects (blocks, spoons, books, pegs etc.) Did they get the right amount? (Start with small numbers and move to larger numbers).

* Ask them to draw the amount of items they brought to you. Did they draw the right amount? Place the items on top to check. 

* Ask your child to rearrange their objects so that they are not in a straight line and draw them again. For example, they could try spreading them out or arranging them in a round shape. Did they draw the right amount?

* Ask your child to set the table for dinner for your family. Ask them how many people they think will be there, and correct them if needed. Then ask them to get out the right amount of plates, forks etc. Did they get out the right amount of each item? 

* Tell your child how many pieces of food they are allowed to have from a sharing plate (e.g. "You can have four apple slices. Why don't you get your own bowl and put the slices in there?). Do they separate out the right number of items?

* If you go shopping with your child,

• ask them to place a number of apples (or other items on your list) into a bag/the trolley.
• ask your child to select a certain number of apples or other fruit for themselves, then add in extra for their brother/sister/parent. For example, "Can you please get two pears for you and another two for me? How many pears is that?"

* Play with Lego-type construction blocks and ask questions like "What different blocks could I use to cover this six/eight dot block?" Look at the different combinations that can be used. 

* Talk about ways to share items of food between a few people: e.g. "We have five cherries. What different ways could you share them with your brother?" Make sure that you do this sharing exercise with amounts that cannot be shared evenly as well so that your child needs to decide what to do with the leftovers.

* Talk to your child about how many pieces of food they will have left after eating some, "You have five pieces of carrot. If you ate two pieces, how many would be left?"

* Play skittles (six or ten plastic bottles works well). Talk about how many you knocked down and ask your child to work out how many are still left. If you go bowling, this is another great opportunity to talk about what numbers add together to make ten.

* Help your child to save their pocket money: 

• "If you have three dollars now and then you earn two dollars more, how much money will you have?"
• "If you have nine dollars now and you spend two dollars on that chocolate, how much will you have left? Is that really what you want to do?"
• Give your child a pile of 10c and 5c coins to count (starting with less than $1). Consider including other coins less than $1. Encourage your child to work out how much money there is and write it down on a piece of paper. Next, hand them one more 10c coin and ask, "How much money is there now?" If they need to count thw whole lot from scratch, let them do it. Then get them to write down their new answer. Ask you child to look at the two amounts of money written down and see what stayed the same and what changed. Repeat, adding or taking away one or two 10c coins until they can do it without needing to count all the money every time. Then try with a 20c coin.

(Ideas sourced from Tierney Kennedy, Back to Front Maths)