Family Numeracy.

In previous years we have run successful Family Numeracy sessions. These sessions helped support children and parents that we all use maths every day, often without realising it. It has promoted a love of maths by helping parents to support their child to feel confident about maths at home and this, in turn, gives them a head start with their learning at school.

The Family Numeracy sessions are brimming with tips and advice including:

• Advice about school and maths
• How a good understanding of maths helps in everyday life
• How to improve your own maths
• Information on the national curriculum
• Helping your child with maths homework
• Current maths teaching methods  

Look below to find a brief description of what the sessions were like

when we last ran the programme.  

Session 1:

During our first session we looked at using Numicon to help support learning such as number bonds up to 10, number recognition and ordering numbers.

Session 2:

During our second session we enjoyed spending time exploring and playing maths games/activities on ipads. We had fun counting groups of objects, completing number lines, finding number bonds and selecting shapes and colours to decorate gingerbread men. This week at home we are looking forward to trying more of the apps and accessing Education City.

Session 3:

This week we have been following and giving instructions using positional language. The children enjoyed using the Beebots in a variety of ways, which included following directions on a map and finding numbers and shapes. We ended the session reading the story of ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ and the children used actions to help retell the story. 

Session 4:

We have had a lot of fun this week learning about 2D shapes. We began our session playing the ‘Shape Shop’ game. We called the ‘Shape Shop’ and described different shapes properties to see if they had any in their shop. With our parents we enjoyed a shape hunt around the hall and we were brilliant at completing the challenge of finding shapes with more than 4 sides. We ended the session making shape pizzas and making shape toppings to go on them. They looked good enough to eat!

Session 5:

This week we had lots of fun learning about measuring. We completed a number of activities which involved drawing around the children and measuring themselves using non-standard units such as cubes, straws, feet and even superheroes. The superheroes were a favourite for measuring and they were great for comparing and ordering in size. The children enjoyed making play dough worms and they were great using vocabulary prompted such as ‘longer’ and ‘shorter’ when comparing them.

Session 6:

During Family Numeracy this week we looked at addition. We talked about what addition meant and that the number of objects we had would increase when adding two amounts together. The children enjoyed reading number sentences and working them out using Cheerios, cubes, Numicon, painting dots and even using a number line as a challenge. At the end of Reception the children are expected to add 2 single digit numbers together by counting on. The children were encouraged throughout to do this. 

Session 7 and 8:

Over these two weeks we have been talking about what 'subtraction' means and how we can work out subtraction calculations. We practiced taking away in a variety of ways which included bowling, using the play-dough to play 'subtraction splat', a takeaway Cheerio game and using Numicon to help us work out subtraction calculations. 

Session 9:

This week we have been talking and learning about patterns. We copied and made our own repeating patterns, symmetrical patterns and even talked about patterns in numbers. Ten frames were introduced and we enjoyed making our own tens frame using egg boxes to take home. This will help us to create patterns and work out our number bonds up to 10 and beyond. 

Session 10:

For our final week of Family Numeracy we celebrated with a party. We walked to the shops with our parents and we were all given £2 each to buy an item of food for the party. The children enjoyed checking they had enough food to share between the 6 of them and they carefully checked they had enough money to pay for it. When we returned we shared the food and cut up our sandwiches into shapes of triangles, squares and oblongs. What a lovely way to celebrate our 10 weeks together!