The teacher seizes every opportunity for children to use mathematics in everyday activities. Working out daily attendance and absences of boys and girls becomes a shared activity, which significantly improves children’s addition and subtraction skills. Similarly, every opportunity is taken to develop children's understanding and use of mathematical language.
Mathematical games prove highly engaging as children cast dice, play matching card games, roll marbles into numbered compartments and use the computer to investigate patterns and number sequences. The stimulating outdoor environment buzzes with activity as children organize races on foot and using wheeled vehicles, for which they receive rosettes to develop a clear understanding of ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd…). Other children construct stepped walls using building blocks, learning to count forward and back as they move soft toys from one step to another.
On special occasions, children are given money bills to spend at the local shop. With help from adults, they produce simple shopping lists to decide what they want to buy and what they can afford. This engagement in mathematics develops children's confidence, understanding and enjoyment of using mathematics in everyday life. A good understanding of place value is considered to be of paramount importance. This is supported by a wide range of practical equipment including base-10 apparatus, 100 squares, bead strings, place-value cards and number lines. Because pupils also require good instant recall of number facts, such as number bonds to 10, and, later, multiplication tables, every opportunity is taken to develop these.
In reception classes, a wide range of activities supports the teaching and learning of mathematics including:
1.observation of number and pattern in the environment and daily routines;
2.board games;
3. large and small construction;
4. stories, songs, rhymes and finger
5.games;
6.sand and water;
7. two- and three-dimensional work with a range of materials;
8. imaginative play;
9. cooking and shopping;
10.outdoor play and ‘playground’ games.
Lessons will often include, or be based upon, well-planned opportunities for children’s play. Planning and organizing this range of activities is important for the promotion of social skills as well as for the teaching of mathematics. An important role for reception staff is to help children begin to recognize that school is where learning takes place. They provide a wide range of opportunities for children to develop their independence and ability to concentrate and persevere. These will include:
1. listening in small and large group settings;
2.finding and using the equipment that they need;
3. taking turns;
4. playing games, for example, becoming familiar with the repetitive structures of throwing dice and collecting objects.
To make sure that children experience a range of activities, the daily mathematics lesson in reception can be planned in the following ways:
1. a whole class activity which will almost always include some counting;
2. some teaching of the whole class on the main mathematics topic of the day;
3. group activities:
a)either one or more activities, linked to the theme of the lesson, worked on by groups in turn during the day, usually supported by an adult;
or mathematical activities for everyone, simultaneously in groups;
3.a plenary with the whole class after the group activities are ended.
The lesson should always begin with an oral and mental starter, followed by some direct teaching to the whole class, and there should always be a plenary session. Sometimes the plenary can be at a time when follow-up discussion on numeracy and literacy activities can take place together. The middle part of the lesson will change over the course of the year and sometimes from topic to topic. Initially, during the main teaching activity, children not working on an adult-directed activity may be working on activities of their own choice (not necessarily mathematical) in various areas of the classroom. If there is another adult in the room, she or he may draw out mathematical opportunities from their play, when there is an appropriate moment.
Towards the end of the reception year, it is important that the lesson structure gradually becomes more like that of lessons in Years 1 to 6. This will mean longer periods of whole class teaching and children working in groups simultaneously. Over time, the elements of the daily mathematics lesson can be drawn together to form a 45-minute lesson. Teachers will need to make decisions about the organisation of daily mathematics
lessons taking into account:
1. the range of age, experience and maturity of the children;
2.the needs of individual children who may require additional support;
3. the number in the class;
4. the mathematical topic being taught – new learning, practice and consolidation, something children have found difficult in the past . . . ;
5. the level of support from teaching assistants.
The sample lessons for reception provide examples of different forms of organisation. The lessons include role-play, outdoor play, rhymes, games, and group work undertaken with a teaching assistant. Schools need to plan carefully the role and contribution of teaching assistants in reception. Assistants need to know the teacher’s objectives for the children’s mathematical learning so that both are working towards the same end. Assistants can then observe or join in children’s play and subsequently feed back to the teacher.
During whole class sessions assistants can:
1. focus on particular children and monitor their responses to the discussion;
2.sit near children who need help, and do this quietly and discreetly;
3. help a particular group feed back to the whole group in a plenary session.
During group work assistants can:
1.observe and talk with the children to inform future planning;
2.ask the children questions to get them thinking;
3. help them to work together sociably;
4. help them to understand an activity;
5.introduce/reinforce mathematical vocabulary;
6. give children the chance to discuss the mathematics they are doing.
Children in reception are expected to:
1. receive some direct teaching;
2. work as a whole class, in groups and as pairs or individuals;
3. develop an understanding of the number system through counting in varied contexts;
4. have many opportunities to talk about mathematical ideas;
5.explore those ideas through well-planned play and practical work.
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