REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER Principal’s Message
9th September 2022
By Mrs Simone Cooke
Dear Parents, From the time they are born our children start to build their numeracy skills. This takes place from watching and experiencing numeracy in everyday play and learning experiences. It begins with them hearing us counting their fingers and toes and starting to recognise basic shapes in their environment. Very quickly they are soon able to identify and compare ‘big’, ‘medium’, ‘small’ and understand concepts of ‘over’, ‘under’ and ‘next to’ and make one -to -one connections between numbers and objects. Every day our teachers build these skills by playing counting and sorting games, singing number songs, but also by providing play experiences that allow children to see numbers being used in their day -to day environment Young children think mathematically long before they enter Kindergarten. You will observe even our very young children actively engaged in problem solving, reasoning, sorting, classifying and using strategies informally. The sandpit is a wonderful place to see numeracy in action. Using large buckets, pans and sieves encourages children to explore shape, size, capacity and weight as they play. The children explain that they are digging ‘deep’ or ‘shallow’ holes and quickly learn if their bucket is ‘empty’ or ‘full’. The children will often add in natural elements such as sticks, stones, shells or leaves and you will see them sorting these into different criteria, positioning them to make curved or straight lines, patterns or shapes, all of which is teaching them important foundations for numeracy.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER
1