About:
In a discussion with a parent, Dr de Gioia offers various easy ideas for parents to try at home to build their child’s numeracy skills before starting school.
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Anthea/Robbie: Ten, nine.
Robbie: One.
Anthea: Eight.
Robbie: Eight.
Anthea: Seven, six, five.
Robbie: Four.
Anthea: I’m wondering what I can do to help Robbie with his numeracy skills for school next year.
Dr Katey de Gioia: I’m sure there is already plenty that you’re already doing and there are a lot of things which are a part of what you do every day that support numeracy development. Counting is probably an obvious one. Setting the table for dinner can involve counting and what we call one-to-one correspondence. How many glasses do we need? One place mat, one glass, one plate. Other counting activities can include counting your shoes as you putting them on, counting out how many ‘Tiny Teddy’ biscuits Robbie can have and then he can count out the same number for Sarah. What about talking about and counting house numbers as you walk to the park.
Anthea: What number’s that?
Robbie: Three.
Anthea: And what number’s that?
Robbie: Eight.
Anthea: And together that’s the house number. It’s thirty-eight. Can you say thirty-eight?
Robbie: Thirty-eight.
Anthea: Good boy. Now, look. Put your fingers and you can make that number shape – you always start at the top when you’re writing the number. So, you go three, like that, good boy, and down there good boy and then up the top for the eight and follow it around, round.
Katey: You can also explore shapes with Robbie. They are so much part of our environment and it’s much more meaningful learning when you talk about what is around you. For instance, when you’re going for a drive in the car, you can talk about tyres, circles, windows, rectangles or squares. Actually I saw a building the other day which had fabulous round windows.
Anthea: I see what you mean like these things we just take for granted and we just think that learning comes from a book. Before we put the train down, can you tell me where are the triangles? Can you see any triangles?
Robbie: One, two, three four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Anthea: Very good. So, they’re black triangles.
Katey: Think of all the shapes you can find at the local shopping centre. It can almost become like a game of ‘I Spy’. I also like to combine concepts such as numbers and shapes. If you think about making a sandwich one day, you can talk about the shape before you cut it – a square and then you can cut it into two triangles. The next day, two rectangles and then four squares.
Anthea: If we cut it like that what’s it going to be?
Robbie: A triangle.
Anthea: Good boy. And if we cut it like this?
Robbie: Rectangle.
Anthea: Rectangle. We’ll cut it like that and then how many rectangles have we got?
Robbie: Two.
Anthea: Two.
Katey: Other ideas relating to numeracy include weighing and measuring. Now, I know you’re a fabulous dessert cook and make the best chocolate brownies. So, next time you’re in the kitchen, you can ask Robbie to join you and you can talk to him about how much of the ingredients you’re using. Show him the measuring cup, different size spoons and the scales and use words such as ‘small’ teaspoon, ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ to describe different weights.
Anthea: Do you want to make a cake with Mummy? All right. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to put some things in the bowl to make the cake.
Robbie: Yeah.
Anthea: Now, we need some flour.
Robbie: Yeah.
Anthea: Now, the flour we’re going to have to get the big spoon.
Robbie: Yeah.
Anthea: Yeah and we’re going to have to put the flour into here, into the measuring cup.
Robbie: It’s very heavy.
Anthea: It’s very heavy. I’ll put it in and then you can pour it in there. Can you help me? Good boy and we need another big spoonful.
Robbie: I’ll do it, I’ll do it. I’ll do it by myself.
Anthea: Of course you will. All right, we’ll try not to get too much mess in the kitchen. There.
Katey: Time is something else you can start to talk about. Time can be a little tricky to learn but you can talk about the time and when things are going to happen. It can also be helpful to give time warnings to give Robbie a sense of time. For example, if he’s playing with his cards and you’re having lunch shortly, you can go to him and say, ‘Robbie, I’m just letting you know that lunch is in five minutes. So, you may want to start finishing up your game. I’ll call you in five minutes when it’s ready.’ You can also do patterning with Robbie. Patterning is an important numeracy concept which assists children to think. It’s also important for language and there are patterns in language children can recognise, continue, copy or create patterns. You can make patterns from clapping, doing different movement activities: hop, jump, hop, hop, jump or you can use things around the house. Threading beads in coloured patterns is probably the most obvious. But what about collecting different coloured pegs or bottle tops and use these for making or continuing patterns.
Anthea: Good, and one more blue will make three. And one more, one more blue.
Katey: Children can also look for patterns at the park or in the street. For example, some front verandahs have tiled patterns and some houses have interesting brick patterns.
Anthea: That’s fascinating. I never realised the importance of patterning, but you’re right it’s all around us. I’m just thinking about when we go for our walk to the park, all the different patterns we’ll see. I’m thinking about all those fences we go past. Thank you so much, Katey, you’ve given me a lot of really easy and useful tips to help Robbie with going to school next year. Thank you so much. Music .
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