<My Favourite Things> Mathematics Area

We chose to focus our activity on Mathematics provision as it was highlighted as being an area of priority in the setting Hannah works in. It is also an area that is a very important part of children’s development and children should be able to explore mathematical concepts through play and in creative ways.

The mathematics area of learning includes: seeking patterns; making connections; recognising relationships; and working with numbers, shapes, space and measures, counting, sorting and matching. It also allows children to develop their abstract thoughts and generalise which develops logical thinking, such as problem-solving, reasoning skills; and analysing events that occur in the world around them (Selmi, Gallagher and Mora-Flores, 2014). By allowing and giving opportunities to explore, practise, learn and talk, this area supports children’s understanding in different situations and becoming confident and competent in learning.

The activity we chose to do was called ‘My Favourite things’ and involved a group of children collecting some things they liked from the room and talking about the properties of the object eg. Shape, size, colour. They were then able to weigh their objects using bucket scales to see which were heavier. The children then explored these objects independently, with an adult there to encourage children, to think about the shape, weight and size of their objects and engage children in mathematical thinking.

Our activity was a balance of adult led and child initiated. It is stated in the EYFS 2014 that this type of balance is important for children as they learn both by their own play and play which is guided by adults. The practitioner is there to be able to demonstrate mathematic language and introduce children to terms and words they may not be familiar with. An activity such as this would be planned individually for a child or a group of children by their keyworker based on interests and next steps gained from observations which the keyworker will have recorded on a next steps sheet.

‘I think the shell will be heavy like B’s. See it is heavy. Rocks are heavy too.’

‘It’s gone down’

‘That’s cos it’s heavy.’

‘Look at all these I have…mine is full.’

‘Mine is empty.’

 ‘Let’s go measure the sand.’

‘Ok. I’m going to see how deep it is.’

Through engaging in this activity the children demonstrated learning outcomes from Development Matters in Mathematics: Shape, Space and Measure 30-50 months of ‘uses positional language.’ The adults were also meeting the ‘Positive Relationships advice for this area to “Demonstrate the language for shape, position and measures in discussions, e.g. ‘sphere’, ‘shape’, ‘box’, ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘inside’, ‘under’, long, longer’, ‘longest’, ‘short’, shorter’, ’shortest’, ‘heavy’, ‘light’, ‘full’ and ‘empty’.” (BAECE, 2012, p.36).

The children engaged particularly well with the second part of the activity, enjoying exploring the objects in a number of ways combining all areas of learning. They used mathematical language in role play, experimentation and resolving conflicts with their peers. This was a very good demonstration of how holistic the learning of mathematics can be. This activity demonstrated well the effective use of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal development with social interaction between adults and children on how to find things out and asking appropriate questions meant that their learning was being advanced. The children were observed on a long observation sheet and a keyworker could use this to further the individual children’s learning by planning activities which allowed them to further their mathematical concepts through play such as making a ‘cake’ with scales and ‘ingredients’ to measure such as flour, water, oats etc. and different sized cake containers.

References:

BAECE, 2012. Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). [pdf] The British Association for Early Childhood Education. Available at: <http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2012/03/Development-Matters-FINAL-PRINT-AMENDED.pdf> [Accessed 20 November 2015]

Broadhead, P. and Burt, A., 2012. Understanding Children’s Learning Through Play: Building Playful Pedagogies. London : Routledge.

DfE, 2014. Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. [pdf] DfE. Available at: <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335504/EYFS_framework_from_1_September_2014__with_clarification_note.pdf > [Accessed 21 November 2015].

Selmi A,M., Gallagher, R.J., Mora-Flores, E., 2014. Early Childhood Curriculum For All Learners. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

By Hannah Lintott (SID 1434365), Melissa Buxton (SID 1432753), and Hyun Sul Lee (SID 1425811)