MATHEMATICS IN THE EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION STAGE

(FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR CURRICULUM AND HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT YOUR CHILD'S LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT AT HOME PLEASE LOOK OUT FOR THE FLYERS FOR OUR PARENTS' WORKSHOPS.)

 

Mathematics in the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum comes under two strands, each of which has an Early Learning Goal attached:-

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."

Shape, Space and Measures
Early Learning Goal - "Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them."
 

The Early Learning Goals are targets for children to reach by the end of the Reception year. The vast majority of pupils at Wellfield achieve these Early Goals and over 20% exceed them by the end of Reception.

 

As with all other Areas of Learning, the teaching and learning of mathematics in our Nursery and Reception classes takes place both indoors and outdoors through a wide range of practical and "hands on" activities.

The staff use their knowledge and expertise to plan for a high quality learning environment which provides children with lots of opportunities to explore different aspects of number and shape, space and measures and learn new concepts. The children have a wide range of structured play resources available to them throughout the year - this is known as "continuous provision".

 

For example, children learn about capacity through their water play indoors and outdoors. They use containers of different shapes and sizes to measure and compare and the adults model the use of these resources and the appropriate mathematical language as they support the children in their play.

Children develop their knowledge and understanding of shapes and their properties through their experiences of activities such as junk modelling and block play. 

Blockplay also offers children the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of some key concepts relating to number such as "Conservation of Number" which means knowing that when a group of objects are moved around the total remains the same.This is a prerequisite skill to calculation.

We also develop children's early counting and number skills using resources such as board games and dice, number tracks,  dominoes and Numicon.

Numicon is a set of shapes which represent the numbers from 1 to 10. The shapes provide children with an image to support them with their understanding of number.They help children to notice patterns in number and number relationships, (see below).

The example below demonstrates how the Numicon shapes can be used to show that 3 and 4 make 7....

... and here we can see how Numicon can be used to find number bonds to make 10
 

Our outdoor activities include plenty of opportunities for children to count and read and write numbers, such as games using targets or games involving scoring and adding up points such as skittles.
 

In addition to the opportunities for child initiated play indoors and outdoors, staff plan adult led activities for groups of children and individuals based on their observations of what children know and can do. They plan activities to address any misconceptions that have arisen and to introduce new concepts.

 For information about the teaching of the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in the EYFS at Wellfield Infants please download the Powerpoint Presentation below.

For additional information and ideas about maths in the EYFS please take a look at our Year Group pages and follow the links below.

Links - please click to open