Maths in Bicicletta - Term 3

This term we have made some changes to our Maths Menu so that it more closely resembles what the higher LCs are doing, thus aiding transition from Prep to 1/2/3. For the first part of the year, maths menu involved a choice of 3 or 4 resources, sometimes with an accompanying challenge or task.

For example, in term two, we once gave the children lots of different measuring tools to see what they would do with them and what their prior knowledge and interests were. Later we gave them a challenge – to measure the purple slide in the colourful playground.

This term we are giving children about four Maths Tasks that they can choose from to work on over two weeks. The focus is still on working mathematically, something that is very important. We provide children with investigative open-ended problems that allow for children of various abilities to make successful attempts in a variety of ways, and for the possibility of going on and on in their investigations and discoveries. We are currently supporting children to develop the ability to record observations and discoveries in a systematic manner, helping them to realise that there are lots of different ways of doing this.

Come and join us some time, or explore some of the tasks at home. We have uploaded the tasks for weeks one and two. We display current tasks on the Maths Board in the small meeting area.

We still do learning games on Friday afternoons, the majority of which are maths-based. Come and join us for this, too. It’s always lots of fun and amazing to witness the way the learning comes out in the games. Here are some excerpts from my documentation:

‘Give and Get’ board game: “I’m putting them like this” said child A, referring to the way he laid out his counters so he could immediately see. “6+4=10! And I know another way of making 10 – 5+5!”

‘Take a number trip’ board game: Child B - “5 plus 3 equals 8 and I’ve got 6 reds. And I used to have 3 yellows, then I got 5 more and it equalled 8”.

MATHS IS AWESOME!