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Developing Numeracy Skills
At BestStart Alexandra children are exposed to different numeracy skills through everyday activities. These may include singing number songs, focused activities at group Hui times, free play with a variety of mathematical equipment, incidental counting opportunities, talking about days of the week and gaining an understanding of time through regular routines to mention just a few.
Some of the numeracy skills which are being developed are:
- Number sense – firstly counting forwards and then backwards, matching accurately one-to-one when counting, counting in other languages
- Spatial sense – developing ideas of shape, size, space, position, direction and movement
- Measurement – of length, height, weight, and time
- Patterning – using numbers, shapes and images, predicting what might come next
- Estimation – understanding concepts of more, less, bigger, smaller, most, least
- Recognition – of number symbols, number patterns (e.g. dice, dominoes) and finger patterns for numbers
- Sorting materials - according to different attributes, shapes, sizes, colours
Through the constant revisiting of ideas and repetition of activities, children are encouraged to build on their existing knowledge base and extend their mathematical understandings.