Numeracy

Numeracy at Sturt House

Flinders University Childcare Numeracy No Comments

“Numeracy is the capacity, confidence and disposition to use mathematics in daily life. Children bring new mathematical understandings through engaging in problem solving. It is essential that the mathematical ideas with which young children interact are relevant and meaningful in the context of their current lives… Spatial sense, structure and pattern, number, measurement, data argumentation, connections and exploring the world mathematically are the powerful mathematical ideas children need to become numerate” Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (p38) The Early Years Learning Framework definition of numeracy is highly nuanced. The concept of numeracy as a way of thinking about and understanding the world is far different to an understanding of mathematics that focuses on processes, or rules. Of course, both understandings have their place, but in early childhood the focus is certainly on numeracy as a tool for understanding and engagement. When we consider the EYLF’s broad definition, we can see how many of the experiences that we take for granted in early childhood education are fundamental to developing numeracy. Things like sorting, counting and pattern making are practices that encourage children to understand their world numerically. Below are some images of the work children in Sturt House have been undertaking recently. Some of the numeracy skills and concepts children have been developing include: Exploring order and number using number cards Experimenting with transformation and tessellation using puzzles and loose parts Representing quantity and number in a variety of ways Gathering, organising and reading dataRead more

Numeracy in Play

Flinders University Childcare Numeracy No Comments

Sometimes when we are talking about learning we get caught up in buzzwords – STEM! STEAM! Literacy! Numeracy! We think about content, we think about assessment, we might think about NAPLAN and all the things that are ahead of us. It all feels really complicated. Competitive. And complex. But does it have to be? Learning in the early years is really, fundamentally, all about play. Play and playful investigations enable children to experience the world in a wide range of ways. Play in carefully constructed environments builds a strong foundation of experience, upon which children can later build structured content knowledge. Indeed, without this strong foundation of experience, children will find it quite difficult to later build this structured content knowledge. “If it hasn’t been in the hand and body, it can’t be in the brain” Bev Bos The wise words of Bev Bos are backed by substantial research. Take, for example, mathematics. When teaching children mathematical content in a school setting, teachers tend to follow a particular sequence – concrete (physical resources), iconic (pictures that represent physical resources) and symbolic (using symbols such as number sentence to represent physical resources). Children often move back and forth through these various stages as they encounter increasingly complex concepts, or unfamiliar ideas. If we expand this out from a single content area and instead look more broadly at the learning and development of children, we can see the connection between the importance of play-based learning before embarking on direct instruction. Take theRead more