PSRN Planning Maths in the environment “Children must be supported in developing their understanding of Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy in a broad range of contexts in which they can explore, enjoy, learn, practise and talk about their developing understanding. They must be provided with opportunities to practise and extend their skills in these areas and to gain confidence and competence in their use.” EYFS 2008 PowerPoint 2. See PowerPoint PSRN Planning 1 first

Skittles- 10 bottles labelled with numerals 1-10 filled (half way) with water, bean bags to throw-counting 1-10, numeral recognition 1-10, beginning to use vocabulary involved in addition and subtraction

Margaret knocked over 4 bottles and then counted 4 with correspondence. When asked how many were left she counted 6 with correspondence. She was encouraged to record her score on the blackboard. She made a mark for each bottle, counting as she went.

Mark said, “You’ve got one and I’ve got lots. ““I can do number 4” meaning he could knock over the bottle labelled with numeral 4. The adult asked him which one it was and he pointed to it. He threw The bean bag and knocked it down, ”I did number 4” he said. Julie knocked down the bottle labelled “5”.”That’s number 3” she said. Then she knocked down number 7, “That’s number 4.”

3D objects – a variety of objects was provided with a slope to investigate rolling down a slope-sorting, naming 3D shapes, properties of 3D shapes

Ian was encouraged to investigate the sloping planks and box of objects. He observed the cylinder rolling down the slope and said “It rolled down.” He then tried this with a block of wood and commented “Not going.” He then placed the wood inside the cylinder and watched the cylinder roll down. The adult close by pointed out the 2 baskets labelled “Things that roll” and “Things that don’t roll”. Ian then placed the cylinder and wood in the appropriate basket. He then continued to investigate with further objects.

Ribbons- a washing line was set up inside with a basket full of ribbons of varying length and material-size language such as “big”, “little”, long/longest/longer, short/shortest/shorter

Janet sorted the ribbons according to length. She put short ribbons in the middle and longer ribbons at the end. She described 2 ribbons of equal length as “the same”. She put 2 pegs on a ribbon and said “Look 2 pegs” then added another and said “There are 3 pegs”. Janet said “This is a longer one. That’s a long one. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. There are 9 ribbons on the line. 1,2 are short. Avril found a ribbon rolled onto a spool. “I need to cut it. It’s too long. It’s longer than the washing line. Look!”

“She then removed the yellow ribbon and placed it around her waist. Look. This ribbon is the same as my tummy.” Rebecca said “Let’s measure them. Look, first we have to lay them down. The yellow one is the longest-this one goes to the very end. “

Playground markings- staff painted a permanent 5x5 grid and a 1-10 number line to support maths games outside Elaine placed felt shapes in the grid and then chalked the corresponding shape there. The children ran from one numeral to another when another child called out different numbers. To extend the experience an adult added 11 and 12.

Mr.Archimedes- the story of “Mr. Archimedes Bath” by Pamela Allen was read to all the children in preparation for this activity set up in the water tray with the contents of the story- Capacity/ positional language/use developing maths ideas and methods to solve practical problems

Jenny put the water in the bowl up to the mark on the measurer. Then she put “Mr.Archimedes “( a stone) in the bowl and looked at the measurer again. “It’s gone up,” she said. Then she put an animal in.” It’s gone up the mark.”

She added more animals and noticed the water spill over. “There’s too much animals in” she said.

She then took out the animals and Mr.Archimedes. “It’s gone down now, back to the line.”

Shoe shop- 10 pairs of shoes which were distinctly “small / medium / large” were photographed and stuck onto shoe boxes of a corresponding size to enable sorting and matching. To extend this, silhouettes of each pair of shoes were made and positioned in separate compartments in the shop. A “child friendly” measuring guide with numerals was added. Raffle tickets were given as the “waiting system.” Simple cheque books were added to encourage mark making. Price lists featuring photos and simple prices were added as well as the till, money etc

Rebecca placed her foot on the measuring grid and looked at the numerals. “Mine only goes up to 14” she said. Edith measured her foot and said “My feet are a 1 and a 2” looking at the number 12.She then chose a pair of shoes off the shelf and measured them on the ramp. They reached no.15. Edith said “These are too big.”

Julie tried on different sized shoes commenting if they were too big or small. She then matched the shoes to the silhouettes. She tried 3 different pairs before she was happy that they fit. Ingrid worked at the till, taking money and giving change and accepting cheques.

5 x 5 grid-red/ blue discs 2 groups of 3 children took it in turns to throw a bean bag. Where it landed they replaced it with either a red or blue disc. When each child had had 3 goes the total number of each colour lid was calculated and recorded. Counting,more than, fewer than

sequencing, maths language- first, next, last, numeral recognition and ordering Paula asked the adult nearby to sing the “Humpty Dumpty” rhyme. After the 1 st line Paula stopped the adult, found the picture with Humpty sitting on the wall and pegged it on the washing line. The adult then asked Paula to find the numeral card with 1 on it to show this was the first card. The sequence was completed by Paula, pegged in order from left to right and corresponding numbers added. She chose the pictures as she sang the rhyme and asked questions, “Why is he sitting on the wall? Why did they leave him alone?” 4 pictures of the sequence of the rhyme were created using the Smart note book software. Numeral cards 1-4 were added. Humpty Dumpty-

Treasure maps- a sand tray was set up with accompanying “treasure” for children to hide, simple grid paper was provided for them to draw a map of their treasure island-positional language, one to one correspondence

Rachel and Jenny worked together to design a treasure island in the sand tray. First they buried a piece of treasure each, then they used the objects provided to design an island placing the objects on top of the sand. Rachel made a cave using a selection of wooden blocks and Jenny made steps using blocks. They then drew the island onto the map grids provided, thinking about where on the maps they needed to draw the objects in line with the objects in the tray.

They drew an X to mark where they had buried their treasure. An adult observing their play then talked with them about their maps and where they had buried the treasure and placed the objects. At the end they swapped maps and used these to find each other’s treasure.

Car wash- car wash area set up with price lists, different tickets for different types of wash, till etc- numeral recognition, handling money, sorting

Wildlife snap/ pairs- pairs of cards provided with pictures of various wildlife (linked with current “topic”)- sorting/ matching/ positional language

Numeral snap/pairs -sorting/matching/numeral recognition

Bean bag throw -3 buckets labelled clearly 1,2, 3. children encouraged to mark down their score on nearby positioned blackboard Numeral recognition / one to one correspondence /counting to 10

Liam threw various bean bags at the targets labelled 1,2,3. He then made marks in the appropriate columns labelled by an adult 1,2,3.

Fishing for numbers- magnetic numerals were added to the water tray together with fishing rods. A tray containing matching numerals was added for the children to match against-numeral recognition/ matching Ingrid said “I caught a number 6.” Paul put the numeral that he’d caught and matched it to the numerals in the tray alongside.