Continuity of learning: English and Mathematics

Sue Southey
Director/Kindergarten teacher

The activity that we did at group time this morning was around … we’re doing some work around reflection. We’ve just set up our light studio. And so I thought spoons would be an interesting activity for these children to do. And a couple of children had brought spoons earlier this week. So by introducing objects that have similar characteristics, it’s a really nice way to start doing some of that sorting into sets, noticing the attributes and then doing some counting to go with it.

One of the things I deliberately do when we’re doing those sorts of counting activities is I do it the wrong way, because what that does is it really pushes the children to think, hang on, that’s not how it works. So for them to start really thinking much more consciously about what are the rules about counting? And it adds a sense of fun to it too. They really enjoy those activities.

One of the strategies that we try to use is modelling appropriate ways of counting, because it’s actually a skill. So that by getting a child to actually touch and count the objects, it helps reinforce that kinaesthetic, tactile experience as they’re actually saying the words. So that … we use that as … that is the way that we count. We touch and count. And by doing it together, we’re just helping our friend to quantify the objects that we’re trying to count.

Sue

But I’ve got a spoon as well

Child

No.

Child

Yours is not a shiny one.

Sue

Not a shiny one, you’re right. There are 13 shiny spoons. Wow. I wonder how many spoons are not shiny. How could we find out?

Children

Count.

Sue

Okay, let’s count them. Leave them in the rest position. One, nine, seven, three …

Children

No, stop.

Sue

Put up your hand if you can tell me the problem. Have a think. There’s a problem. What is the problem with how I’m counting those spoons? Cross your legs, Justice. Have a think. Pacey, what was the problem?

Pacey

You need to count like this: one, two and then three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Sue

But I was touching each one. I was touching each one. Hang on. Have a listen to Pacey. She’s right.

Pacey

Go like this: one, then like …

Sue

So if I start over here with one. Then what do I do next?

Pacey

Two.

Sue

Two. What’s next?

Pacey

Three.

Sue

What’s next? Help Pacey

Children

Four

Sue

Four, five …

Sue

So what happens with children when we form these sets, and we quantify how many objects are in each set, it’s interesting for children to start comparing sets to see which are the larger sets and which are the smaller sets. And it’s actually giving the children a way in to doing that, the skills that they need, the strategies that they need to make those judgments about which set has more and which has less.

Sue

Which is the biggest set?

Child

Those ones.

Sue

Which is the winner?

Sue

Which is the biggest set?

Child

The shiny ones.

Sue

Which one, Zoe?

Zoe

The shiny … this one.

Sue

Yeah, one of those ones.

Zoe

Shiny.

Sue

The shiny ones are the ones that win at the moment. Isn’t that clever?

Desley Jones
Kindergarten teacher

Maths is a really big part of what we do. We have our dice game, which is one of several transition games. I really like transition time. I think transition times are a great little time for exposing children to new possibilities of games and new connections with other people.

The dice game is a lot of fun because they use a big foam dice. One person rolls it, and that person counts the dots on top of the dice and then that person counts the same number of children in a row to go to the bathroom [or the next part of the routine] with them.

So there’s a lot of instruction in that. They’re really having to use their working memories to get through that one, and the children waiting have to really respect the fact that this is one person’s turn.

You do have cries of ‘I haven’t had a turn’, and we acknowledge that, say, ‘Yes, we know and that’s disappointing but, remember, there’s a long time at kindy. We’ll play this game lots of times, so you will get a turn.’

So, again, for us, it meets lots and lots of outcomes. It is very much about relationships too, but it’s equally about maths, and it’s that acceptance of the fact that people will even count those dots differently. So we don’t say that’s right or that’s good. We support them with that.

And I don’t hear the other children say, ‘Oh, you got that wrong’ if they happen to skip a dot. I’ll be there to say, ‘I think your finger was moving a bit fast. I got mixed up with my numbers. Let’s count it again, and maybe I’ll hold your finger this time as we do it.’

So there are lots of ways we can help them out too so that they feel quite comfortable within the space. And so many today called out and said, ‘Oh, it’s my favourite game!’ I said, ‘Oh, well, that’s great.’ And then they often take it on, and if they’ve counted six then they’ll say, ‘Well, that’s seven people going: it’s six plus one more, the person who rolled the dice.’ I think: it’s maths! Maths is around children everywhere. So it’s really exciting

Desley

I’ll bring it to you, Zara, so that you can roll the dice.

Zara

One.

Desley

One. Who will go? One.

Child 2

That makes two.

Desley

And that makes two going to the bathroom, Zara and the one she counted. Your turn, Sophie.

Sophie

One, two, three, four, five.

Desley

Okay, now five children.

Sophie

One, two, three, four, five.

Desley

Five going, plus Sophie. I wonder how many that is altogether.

Children

Six.

Ann-Louise Gilbert
Prep teacher

Okay, when you’ve got yours, can you work out how you're going to describe it? Okay, let’s go around and you can tell me the numeral that you have on your fish. I’ve got a fish and I’m telling you my numeral first. Prep G, my numeral is 20: two groups of 10 and zero more ones.

Child

Prep G 11: one group of 10 and one more one.

Ann-Louise

The whole group activity we worked on this morning was an experience to represent their understanding of number and number value. The children represented their numeral on their fish using Unifix cubes. After representing their numeral using those concrete materials, they described how they had represented it. Prep learners are young, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t have high expectations of them as learners.

Child

Thirteen.

Ann-Louise

Thirteen. Please describe 13 and show me how you represented it.

Child

One group of 10 and three more ones

Ann-Louise

Congratulations, and I can see there’s three there. I can subitise three, I don’t really need you to count three. I believe it, because I can see it.

Ann-Louise

The next part of that learning experience was the understanding of counting in sequence and number sequence. The children needed to know what number came before their number in the counting pattern up to 20 and what number came after their number so they could relocate their sitting position to move into the appropriate position. So that when we counted as a whole group, we were counting in correct counting sequence.

Child

One. Two. Three. Four.

Ann-Louise

Every part of our learning experiences are learning opportunities. So to pack away the numerals at the end of the experience, we select the numerals using a counting pattern of even numbers first and then odd numbers.

Children

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven

Ann-Louise

Thank you.

Child

One.

Ann-Louise

The transitional times within my classroom are part of the learning context. Each day I try to provide a range of learning opportunities. Crazy legs is set up on farm placemats that the children and I created ourselves. They’re using concrete materials then to represent the numeral that they put on their cloud. The concrete materials are farm animals, and they need to represent the numeral on the cloud using the number of legs.

We’ve made this a more open-ended problem-solving activity by adding animals that have more than four legs, spiders and insects, and animals that have two legs. The outdoor learning environment is another opportunity to learn, but an opportunity to learn in a more physical way.