All Modules B6-Development Matters in the early years | Page 38

Playing and Exploring, Active Learning, and Creating and Thinking Critically support children’s learning across all areas

6 Mathematics: Numbers, measure and sorting
A Unique Child:

Positive Relationships:

Enabling Environments:

observing what a child is learning

what adults could do

what adults could provide

• Make books about numbers that have meaning for the
child such as favorite numbers, birth dates or telephone
numbers.
• Use rhymes, songs and stories involving counting on and
counting back in ones, twos, fives and tens.
• Emphasize the empty set and introduce the concept of
nothing or zero.
• Show interest in how children solve problems and value
their different solutions.
• Make sure children are secure about the order of numbers
before asking what comes after or before each number.
• Discuss with children how problems relate to others they
have met, and their different solutions.
• Talk about the methods children use to answer a problem
they have posed, e.g. ‘Get one more, and then we will
both have two.’
• Encourage children to make up their own story problems
for other children to solve.
• Encourage children to extend problems, e.g. “Suppose
there were three people to share the bricks between
instead of two”.
• Use mathematical vocabulary and demonstrate methods
of recording, using standard notation where appropriate.
• Give children learning English as additional language
opportunities to work in their home language to ensure
accurate understanding of concepts.

• Use a 100 square to show number patterns.
• Encourage children to count the things they see and
talk about and use numbers beyond ten
• Make number games readily available and teach
children how to use them.
• Display interesting books about number.
• Play games such as hide and seek that involve
counting.
• Encourage children to record what they have done, e.g.
by drawing or tallying.
• Use number staircases to show a starting point and
how you arrive at another point when something is
added or taken away.
• Provide a wide range of number resources and
encourage children to be creative in identifying and
devising problems and solutions in all areas of learning.
• Make number lines available for reference and
encourage children to use them in their own play.
• Big number lines may be more appropriate than
counters for children with physical impairments.
• Help children to understand that five fingers on each
hand make a total of ten fingers altogether, or that two
rows of three eggs in the box make six eggs altogether.

69. Selects the correct numeral to represent 1 to 5, then 1 to
10 objects.
70. Counts an irregular arrangement of up to ten objects.
71. Estimates how many objects they can see and checks
by counting them.
72. Uses the language of ‘more’ and ‘fewer’ to compare two
sets of objects.
73. Finds the total number of items in two groups by counting
all of them.
74. Says the number that is one more than a given number.
75. Finds one more or one less from a group of up to five
objects, then ten objects.
76. In practical activities and discussion, beginning to use
the vocabulary involved in adding and subtracting.
77. Records, using marks that they can interpret and explain.
78. Begins to identify own mathematical problems based on
own interests and fascinations.

Mathematics: Numbers

Early Learning Goal
Children count reliably with numbers from one to 20,
place them in order and say which number is one more
or one less than a given number. Using quantities and
objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers
and count on or back to find the answer. They solve
problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.

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