Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Collections

Well-chosen activities, heuristic play resources and a number-rich
environment can help practitioners to support children's understanding
of numbers and counting. Nicole Weinstein looks at some useful
approaches and suggests some ways to aid learning.

Children's understanding of number starts from birth. They have a natural ability to sort objects and to discriminate between one, two and three objects, to recognise patterns, such as five, ten, 15, 20, and to problem-solve - all essential skills for learning about maths. Practitioners can support children's ability to count reliably from one to 20 by introducing rhymes and songs about counting, providing heuristic play collections and creating a number-rich environment where counting becomes a part of their everyday lives.

Judith Stevens, an independent early years consultant specialising in maths and early language, says, 'Practitioners have a huge role to play in sustaining children's developing understanding of number - through modelling the use of number language in meaningful, relevant situations and the provision of a number-rich environment, filled with resources that children actually want to explore, sort and count.'

Register now to continue reading

Thank you for visiting Nursery World and making use of our archive of more than 35,000 expert features, subject guides, case studies and policy updates. Why not register today and enjoy the following great benefits:

What's included