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.

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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!