Making Sense Of Maths

The Admin Staff had recognised the potential for patterning in the junior school
to flow over into all strands of mathematics and organised an ongoing professional experience for the teachers of Years 1-3.

The teachers, released for one session at a time, in pairs,
spent the first half hour discussing with Jan what they were currently doing,
and planning together an appropriate activity to do with their class.

Next we visited one of their classes to implement the plan,
being sure to leave some time at the end to ask the children what they noticed,
and what they had learned.

For Year 1 children, most chose a sorting activity with a variety of environmental, or junk materials. It seemed that the more diverse the material, the more interesting the sorting became. The third part of the session was spent reflecting with the teachers on what they noticed, which outcomes within the new Years 1-10 Mathematics syllabus were being covered, and what they might choose to do next.

Year 2 children progressed to patterning, and describing their patterns. Later they began recording the patterns and the numbers in the repeating series.

Some teachers chose to look at growing patterns, and the Year 3 classes explored growing patterns in a variety of ways.

Investigating the number of ways they could walk up steps was a physical activity, then they were asked to record in their own way.