Mathematical Development

Maths isn’t just about number; children are taught about shape, size, capacity, space, money, time and measuring. Activities involving sorting, matching, comparing, making patterns and sequences, baking, planting, board games, number songs and rhymes are featured regularly in the nursery curriculum along with role play and the development of early mathematical and scientific thoughts. We have recently introduced working with the numicon in the preschool room which is a multisensory approach to arithmetic teaching for children. The numicon uses patterns to represent each numeral; these patterns are structured so that number relationships can be seen in a way not provided by written numerals. We also teach children to count with real life objects and we play a lot of guessing games. Children are taught about spatial awareness and introduced to maps and they play with building blocks so that there is an opportunity to learn about shapes and sizes. Number tables have been set up in both preschool rooms and maths has been introduced to dancing.