Play Maths - Devon Curriculum Services
Compiled by Stefanie Burke, Christine Slaughter and Andy Tynemouth
Are you are a teacher in Early Years? Have you ever wondered how to get Reception children to learn independently and be challenged at the same time? If so, I recommend Play Maths to you as a valuable resource.
Play Maths, not only, gives ideas for independent, practical, play activities based on Reception Objectives, but also shows how these can be extended for more able children into the Year 1 and Year 2 objectives. Having been developed by Numeracy consultants and teachers of Reception and KS1 children, the activities have been tried out and found to work successfully.
There is a section on how to plan for a role area, listing the objectives covered, children’s activities and key questions which could be used for extending or assessing the learning. Detailed examples are given of several interesting role play areas and the resources needed to create them. The ideas are presented in a very clear, easily readable format. Teachers could either draw on the given ideas or use the format to plan their own role play areas.
There is a further section called the Ideas Bank that contains descriptions of starting points for teacher initiated, independent activities together with the objectives they are linked to. There are a variety of such activities designed to take place in the play tray, outside, with construction toys, with ICT, in the listening corner or as games. These pages are hole punched so they can be fitted into the NNS as part of the exemplar section.
The biggest difference between this resource and many other publications giving ideas for activities is the discussion on how to create an environment that supports independent learning. It is essential that children are motivated and see the task as important to the teacher. It also requires the teacher to model how to go about the tasks and what children can do if they get stuck. Play Maths gives many well thought out ways in which this necessary environment can be built up.
Overall at £10 a copy, I think Reception teachers in particular, will find Play Maths an excellent source of ideas; but, anyone interested in promoting independent learning would find it of interest.
Tessa Benie
Numeracy Consultant
Play Maths
Devon Curriculum Services
Compiled by Stefanie Burke, Christine Slaughter and Andy Tynemouth
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