Numeracy at reception

[Goldchilled7up]

DS is 4 and in reception. As part of the home work folder he brings home every week he has suggestions on what to do for numeracy. I'm probably being thick here but what do they mean by â?¡making 'big' numbers? and by â?¡ fewer numbers? And does sequencing numbers mean, counting in 2s 5s 10s etc..?

Sorry for the typos, posted on my phone

in reception this early in the year I would assume big numbers is quite possibly only those over 10 so it might be they mean if you had 8 apples and 3 pears how many pieces of fruit would you have? I think they normally do things very visually so you would draw 8 apples and 3 pears and sequencing I would have assumed was more ordering so 1,2,3,4,5 or starting from a number other than 1 so 3,4,5,6,7.

But I don't know. We don't get any homework and I think normally at this stage of the year they are mainly just counting things.

I think numeracy in reception is pretty basic stuff. Some children are still being taught to recognise the numbers up to ten, never mind manipulate them. I think what they mean by fewer is the concept of what is one fewer than (say three) and what is one more than three. I think it's all incredibly basic stuff and some children can do stuff off the map in comparison to what is being asked of them here.

Thank you your reply. He can count up to 100 and order numbers up to 20 so I thought I should work in the other suggestions on his homework folder. But don't want to go it wrong.

I don't think it's possible to get reception numeracy wrong as such, unless you teach your children incorrect addition facts. I think you'll find Y1 numeracy very basic too. You can google EYFS numeracy and KS1 numeracy. It might even be a good idea for you to talk to the current Y1 teacher and find out if she's the kind of person who doesn't mind how the children derive the answer as long as it's correct. There are some Y1 teachers who are very liberal in this respect and there are others who only want work done in their official Y1 fashion (which mum might have to learn from scratch because lots of things have changed since we were in school.) But if the teacher is one of the I don't mind how they do it as long as they get the answer right types, then off you go, teach him whatever you like.

In reception I don't think there is really such a concept as right and wrong (within obvious limits.)

Ds1 is in reception and sounds similar stage to your son (can count to 100 etc) and I know they are doing simple addition up to 20 (though mainly 1-10) and simple subtraction the same. They're also doing counting in 10s.

He doesn't get numeracy homework as such but I try and use numeracy in every day life - eg we have 10 strawberries here, if I give you 5 how many are left for ds2? If we're cooking - we need 6oz, can you find the 4oz weight, what do we need to add to 4 to make 6? Great can you find the 2oz weight

If ds1 tells me he's done something eg 'mummy did you know that 10 add 10 is 20 Add 10 is 30?' Then I'll engage with that and encourage him to do more/we find a practical application for it.

No idea of this is the 'right' approach but I feel that if I'm encouraging him to explore numbers and see how they are used in everyday life then that can only be a good thing.

Thank you for the tips : )

DS1 is a long way behind what your describing your kids are achieving, so I looked up the early years targets. For maths, it states

•Say numbers one to twenty
•Count up to 10 objects reliably
•Recognise the written numbers 1 to 9
•Use words to compare eg more, less, greater, smaller, heavier, lighter
•Find 1 more of 1 less than any number from 1 to 10
•Add 2 small groups of objects with a total of 10 or less
•Count how many are left when some objects are taken away
•Make simple patterns and talk about them
•Name shapes such as circle, square, triangle, rectangle, cube, cone, sphere
•Use words to describe position such as over, under, above, below, on, in,
next to, beside.

Sounds like he's doing really really well, so whatever you've done to date sounds to be right.

Homework here is writing the numbers down - we've had 9 weeks of homework, and so have had sheets, writing 1,2,....9 - one number per week.

Nextphase that's very useful information, thank you. This type of info should be given to parents at the beginning of the year, if they expect us to help at home, otherwise it's very confusing.

Hi Goldchilled:

Just wanted to agree with your sentiments above - telling parents this stuff from the start really does help!

also absolutely agree with list Nextphase posted - but would add, that once counting/ adding & taking away from 10 is solid, I'd then move on to 20.

If you haven't come across it then these may be useful:

Oxford Owl has a maths page as well as reading with games/ ideas to help support early maths work here: www.oxfordowl.co.uk/maths - and in fact just checking the address they've expanded activities now for the entirety of primary school.

Woodland Junior School Mathszone is a fantastic resource with all sorts of great links to games to help support concepts: resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/

Their number skills page has some really useful worksheets to help build skills with adding up and subtracting to 10, 20 and 100: resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/numberskills.html - this is found by clicking addition on maths zone.

Maths Champs has free games ranked by age - so you could start with 5 - 7 age group here: www.mathschamps.co.uk/#home - you may need to play them first yourself to determine if they're about the right level - too hard or too easy.

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Don't forget about simple things you have at home. Board games involving rolling dice and counting along a board reinforces addition skills. Snakes & ladders is ideal for this & you can play it backwards to help with subtraction. Use two dice if you want to work with numbers more than six.

Playing black jack or '21' is really useful for counting to twenty. We played open handed so that our DDs (when they were at that stage) could see our cards and learn about our decision making (whether the stay at the count we have and take another card).

Very simple - The object is to get as close to 21 or exactly 21. If you go over - you're out (or bust). Ace =1, all number cards as shown, Jack/ Queen/ King all = 10. Deal two cards each player (face up at least at first) - work out your count. So say you deal a 3 and a king that = 13. Now do you want another card or do you want to stay there. Say your dealt a 6. 13 + 6 = 19. So you'd probably stay put.

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Finally at some point you may get a note in YR or Y1 saying work on number bonds to 10.

Don't just work on all possible additions to make 10:

  1 + 9
  2 + 8
  3 + 7
  4 + 6
  5 + 5
  6 + 4
  7 + 3
  8 + 2
  9 + 1

also work on number bonds for other numbers (so really bonds for 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9). This will come in handy when adding bigger numbers (and having to carry over) or subtracting (and having to borrow).

HTH