Here in our Caterpillar Class we provide all our hungry learners with rich, exciting and stimulating learning opportunities to engage and develop their numeracy skills. We understand how important it is for children to engage with numbers from a young age and we do this by providing lots of fun, practical and interactive activities., not only in maths sessions but across the curriculum.

You can also help at home by including numeracy skills during your daily activities.

Counting objects 1:1

 You can count the cutlery and plates with your child as you put them away, counting steps/stairs as you go up and down together or counting passing cars that are a certain colour. These are just some of the things they can count. We focus on counting objects up to 5 but if you feel they are confident at this you can increase to 10. The more your child practises counting objects 1:1 the more confident and accurate they will become.

Number Recognition

A great way to practise number recognition is on walks looking at door numbers or number plates on cars, the numbers on remote controls and phones from 0-5 (up to 10 if confident). Another great place to look at numbers is in shops. You can ask your child to look our for a certain number or ask them the number if the aisle you are walking up. There are also lots of number recognition games online or you could play number splat or use flashcards in a random order to practise.

Length/Capacity/Weight

Completing a growth chart is a great way at looking at length and observing how much your child grows over time. You could also find different objects around the house and ask your child to sort them by size, whether they are short or long, then see if they can order them from shortest to longest. When outside can they find the longest tree in the park or the shortest flower, etc. 

When you are cooking, your child can help with weighing and measuring, Compare the weight of different foods by holding them, which is the heaviest/lightest. 

Use different size and shape containers to explore capacity. In the bath or sink encourage your child to fill and empty the containers until they sink. Talk about water levels when pouring a drink, is it full. half full or empty? Predict which container will hold the most/least.

Number songs/rhymes

The children love number songs and rhymes which can easily be found online. We recite numbers forwards and backwards to 10. A selection of videos are below.

Shape

Shapes are all around us and a shape hunt is a great way for children to identify different 2d shapes - square, circle, triangle, rectangle. See what shapes they can find in the house or when shopping or in the park.

Use lego or play dough to make different shapes. Use shape cutters and make a shape playdough model or arts and crafts to make a shape picture. See if your child can sort and match shapes that are the same.

There are lots of activities that you can do at home that will help your child develop their number skills and reinforce what we are doing in school. 

We hope this helps. If you have any other ideas you would like to share please let us know and we can add them to this page.

Many thanks

Mrs Smith and Miss Rees