Out door maths

Over the past few days, the children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring maths through our outdoor provision. Using our “fast maths eyes,” we have been identifying and talking about shapes we can see in the environment, developing our early numberical skills and deepening our understanding of shape in meaningful, real-life contexts.

The children have also been busy creating simple two-part repeating patterns using natural resources such as sticks, leaves, twigs and stones. This hands-on exploration supports the Mathematics area of learning, particularly by recognizing, continuing, and creating patterns, while also encouraging problem-solving, critical thinking and collaboration.

Crew Frost have also been given opportunities to write numbers using chalk and other outdoor materials which has strengthened fine motor control and pencil grip. As the children formed numbers, we used fun phrases such as “around the tree, around the tree, that’s the way we make a three” to reinforce correct formation in an engaging and memorable way.

These experiences offer rich, practical, and play-based opportunities for Crew Frost to build strong foundations in number, shape, and pattern through active exploration.

Well done, Crew Frost — amazing mathematical thinking.

Academic Crew – personalised learning

Recently, during Academic Crew in Year 6 we have been showing independence, collaboration and hard thinking to help us get smart. During these sessions, we have our own learning target that we are focusing on. Some of us are improving our writing skills, some of us are becoming better readers and others are becoming better mathematicians. Last week, postcards were given to Rory, Tommy and Tiarna for their effort during this session. This week, postcards were given to Charlie, Ruby and Toby. Follow us to find out who will be next!

Concrete Maths To Launch A New Unit!

We have been busy in our concrete maths session using sticks to build numbers as part of our Multiplication and Division unit. To kickstart this unit, pupils used sticks in bundles of 12 to make equal groups. They drew upon their shape learning to make equal groups too. We then had a gallery walk to see the different representations and orientations before making ‘unequal groups’. What a brilliant day of hands on Maths!

Sticky Knowledge – Maths Reasoning

Each week, in Crew White, we have a different reasoning focus then the following week we find out how much of that learning has stuck. Last week, the focus was all about matching questions: fractions, decimals and percentages. Today, we tackled two short reasoning questions to see how well the learning stuck and thankfully it’s still in our brain ready for when we need it. This is something called retrieval practice.

Red is ready to go!

This week the crew Frost have been introduced to a rekenrek. A rekenrek is a is a hands-on maths teaching resource used to help young children visualize and learn essential early years maths. It is perfect for building up subitising skills and concrete experiences during their maths sessions putting their fast maths eyes to the test. However, to start in crew Frost we have just been practicing the golden rules for using a rekenrek such as “red is ready to go” meaning we always push with the color red at the front and only with one finger and one big push! Once crew Frost mastered this we were able to have a go at pushing just one red bead across and to really challenge two for some! Well done crew frost you were amazing at it!