My three revelations about young children’s maths

Nov 6,2016 / By Kathy / 15 Comments

I’ve been doing research this week on mathematical development in the Early Years, which has produced three very interesting revelations for me and how I’ve always perceived mathematical development.

First of all, let me say that I was a little sad when the EYFS moved away from ‘Problem Solving, reasoning and numeracy (PSRN)’ back to ‘mathematical development’ as a descriptor for this area of learning and development. PSRN really explained that this area is not just about numbers, but how we use maths, its benefits and how children learn about maths.

Let me give you an example. Probability is the mathematical term of how likely something will occur. If you have 10 balls, nine yellow and one pink, and you randomly choose a ball it is more likely (more probable) to be yellow than pink. As adults, this is fairly intuitive – obvious even.

However – it turns out that babies as young as six months old show surprise when there is an improbable colour ball drawn out – i.e. if you drew out the only pink ball in the box in the example here (Denison et al., 2013).

The inference is that babies start to reason mathematically about their world at around six months old – they are logical.

Articles

Playing in the Forest

Jul 17,2016 / By Kathy / No Comment

The Stockport Early Years Network had the great pleasure of visiting the ‘Wacky Woods’ near Bollington in Cheshire last week, with Alex. This is part the Schola Foris curriculum – ‘a fun, challenging but safe outdoor environment where creative play and learning can take place naturally’.

We went ostensibly to find out about the way that being in a forest environment can enhance, encourage, stretch, challenge, reinforce, invigorate children’s learning.

I went because I love the forest and Alex does a great cup of coffee (with water boiled over the camp fire in a blackened kettle).

It has been raining hard here, so the first thing we experienced was walking through the mud puddles, squelching and squealing as the mud pulled at our boots. And the delight as we spotted tiny boot prints from the children who had visited that afternoon (or was it tiny forest folk?).

Gathered around the fire, watching the water boil, we started to talk about risky play and how to explain to practitioners and parents that climbing trees has many benefits. In fact, Alex suggested that your risk analysis should start off with the benefits, which I thought was an excellent idea.

Articles

Get Packing!

Jun 2,2016 / By Kathy / 8 Comments

For some reason in the last few weeks I have either been doing lots of work with, or talking to, practitioners working in ‘packaway’ settings. These are settings that have to be packed into boxes and cupboards at the end of each day or each session, usually so the room or space can be used by someone else.

Although some of these are small settings, such as pre-schools, some are much larger, consisting of several rooms and outdoor areas. This can turn ‘tidy-up’ time from a quick check for any lego left out or toys in the garden into a huge logistical job where everyone needs to know their role inside out.

However, I do think that there are some great benefits that only those who DON’T have to heave boxes in and out every day can appreciate.

Articles

On Your Marks!

May 27,2016 / By Kathy / No Comment

Michael Jones Mark Making I was very excited to hear that Michael Jones (well-known for his prowess in the speech and language world, via his blog Talk4Meaning) had a new book out about mark making and early writing – called On Your Marks!

This is a very different book to his other writing, as it is an activity filled, practical ideas based book. The first notable feature is that each page (the ‘ideas’) are all photocopiable, which is made easier as the book is spiral bound, with a landscape layout. Next you will notice how the chapters are organised in a very logical fashion – even starting with the types of paper you may use – moving onto big movements, fine motor skills and ‘handedness’.

Much is made of mark making as a process rather than product, so there is plenty of advice about taking photos during the activities, as well as displaying the final product.

Some of the less common good ideas are discussed too, such as how moving to music improves gross motor skills (essential for producing body movements for writing later on) and how the way we visually scan a page depends on cultural writing norms, affecting the way that we teach children.

Articles

Your Guide to Sustained Shared Thinking

Apr 22,2016 / By Kathy / 2 Comments

My new online course on Sustained Shared Thinking is now available. You can get it at a special price here…
» The Sustained Shared Thinking Online Course «

I’m currently getting a lot of interest around Sustained Shared Thinking, which is very encouraging as I am a massive fan of this proven method of quality practice.

This guide will consider the what, why, how, when, where and who of Sustained Shared Thinking.

Articles

Food for thought at the Story Café

Jan 31,2016 / By Kathy / 1 Comment

It was my great pleasure to attend the Cheshire East Early Years Teacher Network meeting this week. We were welcomed into the New Life Nursery in Congleton to find out all about their Story Café.

Now, I’ve read about story cafés. They are an excellent parent partnership idea, where parents can come along with their children to share a story, in a relaxed, café style environment. Practitioners can support parent’s story telling, give ideas for sharing books at home and share knowledge about language development. Parents can get an insight into nursery life and spend time with their children, other parents and practitioners in an informal way.

There are a mountain of obvious benefits for parents, practitioners, children and the relationships between all of them. However, I had always thought that it sounded difficult to organise and resource, so I was really looking forward to finding out how it was achieved so successfully in Congleton.

Articles

Even More Sources of Free Information for Early Years Practitioners

Jan 23,2016 / By Kathy / No Comment

Books Keeping up to date with changes in legislation, practice and pedagogy can be a real headache, especially when there is so much information on the internet. I find that subscribing to some key sites (for free) helps to keep me in the know and ensures my practice is current.

Here I’ve listed some of my ‘go-to’ sites, which make getting information much easier and faster. Some of them you can decide how often you’d like emails, so you may only want them once a month or you can choose more often:

CASPAR NSPCC updates This is an ‘awareness service for practice, policy and research’ with weekly emails. These are particularly good for the latest safeguarding and child protection news, from all parts of the UK. It also includes news for older children, children in care and social services updates

Articles

The Power of Schematic Play

Nov 27,2015 / By Kathy / 1 Comment

Schematic play is fascinating to watch and can be a very informative way of analysing children’s thinking.

I have written previously about the mixed feelings some practitioners have about schemas – find the blog post here – but schematic play is now identified in the EYFS and can be a powerful learning process for young children. For this reason, I’m going to focus on one very typical type of schematic play – Transporting.

Let’s start a the beginning though. Athey (2007) defines schema as ‘patterns of behaviour and thinking in children that exist underneath the surface feature of various contents, contexts and specific experience’ (page 5).

So when you are looking out for a particular schema, you must observe children’s behaviour and see if that behaviour is repeated in many different areas of play, such as drawings, physical activities, 3D modelling, role play and sand play.

Using the Transporting schema as an example, do you see the children:

Articles

How To Develop Children’s “Extra Senses”

Nov 20,2015 / By Kathy / 8 Comments

How many senses do we have?

Five, right? – touch, taste, sight, hearing and smell.

However, if you talk to an occupational therapist, you’ll find at least an extra two – vestibular and proprioception – which are vital that you know about.

The vestibular sense is so named because it is sensed in the ‘vestibulum’ system in the inner ear in the semi-circular canals. These are responsible for balance, and it describes both the sense of balance and spatial orientation. The vestibular system detects movement and changes in the position of the head, for example, when your head is upright or tilted (even with your eyes closed).

Proprioception is defined as the perception of stimuli relating to position, posture, equilibrium, or internal condition. Basically this means knowing where your body is in relation to the external environment, for example, being able to sit in a chair without turning round to look, or walk up stairs.

Proprioception is a dynamic sense, allowing us to continuously adapt to a changing environment and is learned through all our other senses and neuro-developmental exercises, usually whilst we are children.

It is vital to know about these, because without good vestibular and proprioception senses, children would not be able to walk, hop, skip, navigate around a room, catch a ball and definitely not be able to manage stairs.

Articles

Surprisingly Simple Techniques for Challenging Behaviour

Sep 24,2015 / By Kathy / 4 Comments

I often get asked about children’s behaviour.

It is a massive topic, with many facets. However, I would always start from the perspective that all behaviour, good or unacceptable, is a form of communication. It is how we, as practitioners and adults, respond to that communication that makes all the difference.

1 2 3 4 5 … 7

“You kept us all interested and engaged throughout the day with the range of activities and challenges you gave us and your friendly, approachable delivery meant that everyone felt comfortable taking part. A great start to the new academic year.”.

Gina Donaldson, St Silas CE Primary, Liverpool

"I feel it was very relevant and changed my perspective on role play."

"I feel it was very relevant and changed my perspective on role play."

“Very approachable and friendly – no question too trivial. Course was adapted to suit the nursery needs”.

Sure Start Centre, Wigan

As featured in…

Category : Articles