Adding maths talk activities to your daily routine
Developing maths talk in your daily routine gives learners a chance to understand it while using real-life concepts. It also means that children can consolidate what they have learned and practice, practice, practice!
Here are some activities to get you started.
Activity #1: how many children are at school?
There are lots of opportunities for children to count during the school day. One easy activity is to get your class to work out how many children are at school by placing a picture of themselves or a counter representation on large ten frames. This is a great way of counting and spotting patterns using ten frames.
Ask learners questions like:
“How do we know this ten frame is full?”
“How many children are absent?”
“How do you know?”
“What can you tell me about the number ___?”
Getting learners familiar with ten frames and building their number sense in the early years is great preparation for Year 1.
Activity #2: sorting and grouping objects as a class
Sorting and grouping objects as a class helps children learn to reason and look for patterns — skills they’ll need to master maths.
Give children a variety of buttons each day and ask an open-ended question like, “how can we sort the buttons?”
The children should use their critical-thinking skills and come up with a range of ideas like sorting by size, colour, pattern, and shape.
Activity #3: vote for a story
Provide an area for children to vote for a book. First, ask a child to pick two books. The rest of class then votes for their favourite book using a piece of lego. Cubes, counters, or any other abstract concrete resources will also work.
Every child has one vote a day and should place their lego piece next to the book they want to listen to during storytime. But of course, only the winning book is read.
We have great discussions on which book has won each day.
“Why?”
“How do you know?”
“How many more votes did one book have than the other?”
The rich opportunities for maths talk in this simple daily activity are endless. My class loves this activity and it’s just as effective in KS1 as well as the early years.