Several years ago our head teacher asked us to develop an ambitious maths curriculum for the nursery. Over the next two years the whole nursery team came together to discuss the different aspects of mathematical learning. It became clear, many staff members had had negative experiences of maths at school so had developed a disinterest in the subject beyond counting and recognising numerals. I, on the other hand have a passion for maths thanks to my positive early experiences of Maths thanks, in part to the Mr Harley who made maths learning meaningful and fun. I had work to do. The team were really keen to build up their knowledge of the different mathematical strands so we took a strand every half term to delve deeply into the concepts and vocabulary to ensure everyone felt confident in understanding and using language mathematically without having feelings of anxiety. This was about becoming mathematically fluent and finding ways to playfully support children with their mathematical thinking.
Each term we thought of ways to bring our newfound mathematical knowledge to group times by introducing games and ideas we then presented in the continuous provision the following week. We assessed our activities, adapted them where they needed adapting before then adding them to our curriculum. The following year as we became more confident and able to break down each concept we made some further changes until we were all happy with the clear progression in each area every half term.
There is always room for improvement so although the curriculum is followed each year we continue to make changes based on how well the children are able to retain ideas and concepts we put to them each term. We are always finding better ways to introduce, practice and repeat mathematical concepts.
Our year begins with categorising objects, since in the new nursery year we teach the children about their immediate space, the objects in it and how to use them. Putting resources away becomes a highly mathematical and methodical task. We reinforce the idea of categorising in small fun group times where we explore categorising things in different ways. The children come up with really interesting forms of categorisation such as natural and plastic. Once they understand categorising we move onto making simple repeated patterns using song, body percussion and then the categorised objects, always expecting the children to explain their pattern, ‘look I made a shell stick pattern’. It is such a joy when we see children excitedly explaining their patterns to their peers in the continuous provision, ‘This is my petal, leaf pattern’, ‘come and see my really long red, blue green pattern. It goes on for ages, red blue green again and again’. We use lots of rephrasing to ensure children hear the correct language to describe their patterns.
After pattern, in autumn 2 we move onto cardinality and counting where the children are exposed to the elements of accurate counting using ideas such as plopping objects into a pot and only saying a number when the sound of the object landing is heard. As the weeks progress the children learn the last number in a count tells you how many there are in a group. by the end of the term our small groups introduce the idea of conservation, an amount staying the same regardless of how you arrange the counted objects. This concept can be understood using very small quantities and is far more useful than falling into the common trap of introducing larger amounts to extend our children's thinking. We decided on key words for each strand so each term we make an extra effort to use the vocabulary that helps support understanding of each strand.
Comparison is the strand we chose next as we felt it made sense in terms of progression. Here the language of more and fewer is used to describe the differences between amounts. We play games where groups of the same amount are discovered. A favourite collective game is to make towers in one minute and then compare the amounts of bricks used.
Composition comes next where we encourage the children to see amounts within amounts by providing lots of opportunities to make arrangements using different containers such as egg boxes or ice cube racks. The words we encourage and introduce are: arrange, organise, put, more, fewer, not many, lots and the same amount or a different amount.
Shape and Space comes next in our sequence of mathematical teaching and learning in a mixture of adult introduced and invitations to explore in the continuous provision. Noticing and talking about the relationship between objects and our bodies in different spaces is incredibly interesting. Many children find it difficult to work out the width they take when riding their trike. Carrying really long branches or sticks in the forest often needs an adult to point out how to look along the length of the stick to ensure nobody gets knocked over. Looking at shapes, their properties and similarities helps practitioners see the value of helping children think and notice rather than only focussing on the labelling of regular shapes.
Next, as we build up the children's mathematical understanding we plan for groups and activities that invite the talking about, and experimenting with, measures. This is the time we make sure children have had exposure to the language of length and practitioners are pushed to consciously use language beyond big and small. The language of weight and comparison often comes up in play with resources outside especially. What we found is that the vocabulary of practitioners as well as children was improved over the two years and this then enabled staff to use more specific vocabulary in their incidental interactions.
Children made greater progress with their mathematical learning once we started implementing our curriculum compared to our previous cohort. What was also really clear was the improved outcomes in communication and language as a result of the focus on specific language use. Staff became more confident and continue to add new games and ideas to help children gain deeper understanding in all of the mathematical strands.
For each strand we make sure there is a mixture of opportunities inside and outside to experiment rehearse and enjoy newfound knowledge. Children continually bring up ideas that are mathematical in nature as maths surrounds us in everything we do and see. So the more we can support curiosity and interest in this area the more we help children think like mathematicians. The EEF’s Early Years Toolkit estimates that effective early numeracy approaches typically increase children’s learning by about seven months.