The curriculum for the Foundation Stage expects, among other things, that children's mathematical understanding should be developed through stories, songs, games and imaginative play. In this way, children will enjoy using numbers and shapes and trying out different measures.
As well as learning about measuring in books, children learn about measures by holding small heavy things and large light things, by doing cooking, by balancing objects, by sitting on a seesaw, by holding hands round a tree or by walking along the edge of the mat.
Children also need storybooks that pose problems about measuring, such as Six Feet Long and Three Feet Wide by Jeannie Billington and Nicola Smee (Walker Books 0 7445 6837 4, 6.99). Whose feet do you use as a measure when you make a bed? There's trouble if it's the wrong person and the bed is too short!
Children love these conundrums, but they have to understand the problem from their own experiences. There are a great many counting and number books. The best ones have interesting images and artwork which encourage the children to talk.
Two of the newest books are Annie Ant's Double Trouble and Buster Bug's Laugh-and-a-Half (David & Charles, 9.99), both by Vicki Churchill and illustrated by Charles Fuge. Here the focus of the books is doubling and halving in the context of a story.
Almost all everyday activities can be extended to contribute to the children's understanding of mathematics - for example, by providing numbered parking bays for bikes and pull-along trucks, especially if the vehicles are labelled with matching numbers. Children soon begin to park the number 4 bike in the number 4 bay.
Putting a chalkboard and easel next to an outdoor game such as skittles or a dice-throwing game adds a recording dimension to working out the score.
