At Tanworth, it is essential for all of our children to develop a secure conceptual understanding of number. It is also important that our children are given rich opportunities to develop their spatial reasoning skills and that they become confident mathematicians who can explain their thinking and can problem solve effectively. 

When your child is confident with recognising the numerals to 10 and their values, you can use the I Spy sheets in the folder below to deepen their understanding of representing numbers to 10.

It is crucial that your child can correctly form their numerals. The formation rhyme sheet below is a good way to remind your child how to form their numerals correctly.

Remember that you always start your numerals at the top!

There is still a place for children to be able to verbally count beyond the numbers they conceptually understand. You can use the counting stick or number line below to practise counting forwards and backwards from any given number to 20 and beyond.

We use a five or ten frame throughout our time in Reception in many different ways. It is really handy for being able to practise our subitising skills (being able to instantly recognise the total quantity we have), recall our number bonds to 5 and 10, and add more and take away with confidence. You can find an interactive five and ten frame below.

Tangrams are a great way to help children develop their spatial reasoning as well as jigsaws and other shape puzzles. You can use the interactive tangram below to manipulate and rotate shapes.

To encourage the children to develop their mathematical thinking we use these key questions:

What do you notice?

What is the same and what's different?

How do you know?

We always try to encourage them to answer back in full sentences using the sentence stems:

I notice that...

I think that...because...

These questions are not specific to maths, however, we use them all of the time throughout the environment to encourage the children to look more closely and to notice the world around them.