Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Maths Meeting Notes


Many thanks to those of you who attended our maths meeting this morning , we appreciate that some people may not be able to attend through family or work commitments and so we are attaching the Power Point slides.
If you have any questions regarding the teaching of maths in Foundation Stage please do not hesitate to ask us .
Thank you 




Mathematics in the EYFS


It involves providing opportunities to practise and improve children's skills in:- 
Counting numbers
Calculating simple addition and subtraction problems
 Describing shapes, space and measure


Two Early Learning Goals taken from the EYFS Curriculum Document 2012


1.Numbers
Count reliably with numbers from 1-20
Place them in order
Say which number is one more or one less than a given number
Using quantities and objects, add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer
They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing


2. Shape, space and measures
Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects
Solve problems
They recognise, create and describe patterns
They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them


What do we do in school?


We make mathematics fun 
We call children ‘mathematicians’
We make activities as practical and interactive as possible
We relate mathematics to real life situations
We encourage children to solve problems
We encourage children to explain their workings
We explain that we can learn from our mistakes.





Skills in early addition
Counting all – a child doing 2+ 3 counts out two bricks and then three bricks and then finds the total by counting all the bricks.
Counting on from the first number – a child finding 3 +5 counts on from the first number ‘four, five six, seven, eight’.
Counting on from the larger number – a child chooses the larger number, even when it is not the first number, and counts on from there.


Skills in early subtraction

Counting out – a child finding  9 – 3 holds up nine fingers and folds down three.
Counting back from – a child finding  9 – 3 counts back three number from 9: ‘eight, seven, six’.
Counting back to – a child doing 11 -7 counts back from the first number to the second, keeping a tally using fingers of the number of numbers that have been said, ‘ten, nine, eight, seven’, holding up four fingers.


Strategies for memorising


Kinaesthetic - this involves memorising through movement, learning by matching facts to specific ways of moving, such as finger counting or action sequences.
Visual - some children have a good visual memory, and can ‘see’ facts on the page/board.
Aural - some children remember things by ‘hearing’ them repeated. Chanting the sequence of numbers, matching facts to rhymes, songs or music.

Written – writing something can help the facts travel from the pen to the ‘brain! Children can see how the facts connect together when they are presented in written form, 3+2=5, 2+3=5.
Pattern - some children find it easier to recall facts when they understand the structure of patterns in which they are embedded, dots on  dominoes or dice.




We hope you will find the Maths Activities sheet we sent home useful- why not try one of the activities at home and your child can come and tell us all about it!

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

New Maths Challenge!


New this term- look out for Maths challenges on our blog- you could always take a photo of the activity or record it on paper to share at school and put in your child's learning journey.

Don't forget the maths meeting on Tuesday 20th at 9am in the Lower School Hall- we will post on this blog the notes pertaining to it if you are unable to attend

Maths Challenge


Can you make a repeating pattern using forks and spoons?

If you are able to please could you send your child into with a small box eg cracker box/tea bag box for next Tuesday's maths session- thank you 

Remember it is really important to read regularly at home even if it's only for ten minutes a day
You can also practise the sounds we have learnt too by playing games with your child eg how many words with ch in can we think of in one minute 

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

Happy New Year!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and your children are  recharged ready for Term Three!

This week we will be going into the woods on Friday and PE kits need to be in too- thank you 

We are learning three new digraphs this week - they are qu,ch - so perhaps you and your child  can think of some words that have the digraphs in them?

A plea for resources - Our topic this term is bears and with that in mind we were wondering if you have any non fiction books about bears at home that we could borrow? We will of course look after them and return them to you at the end of the term .

We are also holding a maths meeting at 9am  on Tuesday 20th January in the Lower School Hall - if you are unable to attend we will send home a summary of the meeting.

Thank you