Welcome back to the "Playful Maths" weekly series brought to you by
Together, let's make MATHS FUN!
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Last week I shared Counting and Grouping with Sticks.
This week we bring you another 2 Playful Maths Activities using Natural Materials.
This week we are focusing on counting and playing with concrete materials.
Other skills involved include fine motor, number recognition, writing numbers, counting on, making patterns, grouping, sorting etc.
Ages: 3+ (Maddie is currently 4)
(See the Handy Tips at the bottom to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)
The Invitation to Play
The Invitation to Play
Materials: Different amount of natural materials, numbers (we used foam numbers), paper and markers (optional)
The best part about an Invitation to Play and Learn is that once you have set it up, that's pretty much it. The rest is up to the child. Depending on the outcomes you are looking for, it is up to you how much or little you intervene in their exploration. Sometimes if there are ideas I'd like her to try that she hasn't discovered for herself, I just play side-by-side, doing my own thing and she can see and learn from that. (eg. she was busy making and representing numbers so I started making a little pattern.. When she was done with her other things she started creating her own patterns) Otherwise, you could offer suggestions or just let them be to utilise the materials the way they want.
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| Seed Pods (collected from the ground) |
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| Gumnuts and Shells collected on nature walks |
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| Little Sticks collected from the garden and cut to size |
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| White River Pebbles purchased for $2 at a variety shop |
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| Foam Numbers ($2 from a variety shop) |
The Play, Learning and Exploration
This is what happened when I just let her be..
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| Tracing Numbers (yes, upside-down) :) |
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| Counting out corresponding numbers of natural materials |
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| Consolidating her understanding of how numbers are represented and what they mean |
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| Hard at play |
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| Representing the number 4 |
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| Look, we can represent numbers without the paper and markers |
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| Teen numbers |
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| The number 4 (included is a picture of herself because she is 4 years old) |
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| Not wanting to move any of her creations she moves around the table finding new spaces to work |
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| We tried making the gumnuts sit on the number 8 but they kept rolling off. 8 gumnuts for the number 8 |
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| We can make the numbers ourselves too! |
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| We could do ordering |
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| I can make 16 using a variety of materials. (Ask, how many shells? How many sticks? How many pebbles? etc) |
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| I saw Mummy making patterns so I want to make them as well |
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| I can make my patterns continue over the whole table! |
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| Mummy challenged me to use ALL of the natural materials in a pattern. It's a bit tricky but I can do it! |
Handy Tips
- Simplify this activity by providing fewer materials. Just some natural materials for them to put out and count and sort is a great starting point and you can add things like numbers and writing/drawing materials later.
- Extend this activity by:
- Encouraging number writing
- Providing larger numbers or encouraging them to make larger numbers
- Adding a die for children to practice subitising and counting and addition
- Also providing mathematical symbols like "+" "=" etc to encourage number sentences and basic addition/subtraction etc.
- Mix it up by doing similar invitations with a variety of different materials. Instead of markers and paper you could provide a salt or sand tray for writing in. You could also use things like feathers, wood chips, leaves, stones etc.
- Use the mathematical language that goes naturally with this activity, such as groups of, amount of, pattern, continue, materials, etc.
- Ask questions to help lead children towards certain thinking, eg. "Do you have more gumnuts or shells?"
"I wonder which of the materials you have the most of?" etc. This should encourage children to count or compare or make guesses.
- Ask questions to help lead children towards certain thinking, eg. "Do you have more gumnuts or shells?"
"I wonder which of the materials you have the most of?" etc. This should encourage children to count or compare or make guesses.
- Below are some of the previous Playful Maths posts from us and The Imagination Tree, using various everyday materials.
Playful Maths with Natural Materials
(Click the pictures to go to the post)
Playful Maths Bottle Top Activities
(click the pictures to go to the posts)
Playful Maths Egg Carton Activities
(click on the pictures to go to the posts)
Don't forget to join us next week where we're bringing you more Playful Maths activities.
Happy playing,
Debs :)
Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)
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