Exploring and Playing
Maths Reception Spring Comparison and Measures
Hamilton's Reception Maths planning targets the key characteristics of effective early learning:
- Through Exploring and Playing, children independently engage with their peers and their environment.
- Active Learning group activities promote the motivation needed to be involved and to keep trying.
- Guided Creating and Thinking Critically supports development of problem-solving & reasoning skills.
Maths Out Loud: whole-class counting, repetitive chants, rhymes, songs and a linked story to enjoy together.
Comparing weights (suggested as 5 days)
Creating and Thinking Critically
Active Learning
Maths Out Loud
Counting
Sit children in a circle. Count in 1s around the circle. Children raise their arms when they say their number - as you do in a ‘Mexican wave’; then count back again.
Repeat, starting elsewhere in the circle.
Chants/Rhymes/Songs
Sing a song which practises counting backwards, e.g. Ten green bottles. Children can join in with this animated version.
Story
Mighty Maddie by Stuart J. Murphy
You Will Need
Exploring and Playing
Four cans of different weights, e.g. anchovies, tuna, 200g beans and 450g soup; bucket/rocker balance; four different coloured pots/ paper cups; sand; cotton wool; pasta; dried beans; saucers; digital camera; ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ cards to write names; pens; items to wrap, e.g. boxes, packages or toys; wrapping paper; scissors; tape.
Active Learning
Watermelon (which will fit in the bucket balance); lettuce and other fruit and vegetables of different weights; bucket/rocker balance; blindfold; small bag of sugar and a larger bag of cotton wool; tins of food of different weights; a bag of cotton wool and a bag of potatoes of roughly same size; a stone and apple of similar sizes; a spring scale (see Active Learning download); a toy car; an orange; flipchart and pens.
Creating and Thinking Critically
Two shopping bags; food items of various weights; bucket/rocker balance; soft toy; boxes, brown paper, tape, scissors; 500g weight; sign with prices; pound coins; a spring scale (see instructions below plan); fruits and vegetables which will fit in the baskets; flipchart; strong tape.
Measuring weights (suggested as 5 days)
Exploring and Playing
Active Learning
Creating and Thinking Critically
Maths Out Loud
Counting
Show children 1-10 on the washing line. Give each child a number card from 1 to 10.
Point to 5 on washing line. Hold up your number if it is more than 5! Hold up your number if it is less than 5!
Repeat with other numbers.
Chants/Rhymes/Songs
Sing ‘One potato, two potatoes’ or this variation: ‘One tomato, two tomatoes’ . Discuss which numbers are more than 6.
Story
How to Weigh an Elephant by Bob Barner
You Will Need
Exploring and Playing
A selection of as many balances/scales as you can find; catalogues; sticky notes; bucket/rocker balance; Duplo® bricks; a range of small toys, e.g. play people, animals, cars, trains, gems, or natural materials, e.g. pine cones, conkers, acorns, shells, small pebbles etc; scales; baby dolls; clipboard; paper and pens; soft toy animals.
Active Learning
Three shoes; bucket/rocker balance; wooden bricks/counting dinosaurs; sticky notes; apple, orange (heavier than the apple); reasonably uniform small pebbles; reasonably uniform big pebbles; marbles (or other uniform, small, heavy objects); items heavier and lighter than 20 marbles; 5 equal-sized carrots; 5 paper bags; wooden bricks (or other items such that 5 carrots weigh about 20 objects); toy Rabbit; sticky labels.
Creating and Thinking Critically
Bucket/rocker balance; weights; ingredients for a simple recipe, e.g. cheese scones or cookies; 5-20 cards; access to the sand pit; small spade; bricks, e.g. Duplo®; playdough; boards; multilink cubes; >500g each of several types of bulbs; paper bags.
Time (suggested as 5 days)
Exploring and Playing
Active Learning
Creating and Thinking Critically
Maths Out Loud
Counting/ Talk
- Use an analogue then digital clock to support counting on in steps of one hour from 8 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock in the evening.
- Make a visual timetable to keep track of regular events in the school day – take photos with the children. Once familiar with the timetable, take off all the pictures, muddle them up, and ask children to help you sort them back into order! First, we have lunch, then we wash our hands. Oh, isn’t that right? Why not? Is it right that we go home at the beginning of the day?
- Talk about day of the week at register time: What day comes after today? What day was it yesterday? What day comes after/before Tuesday? How many sleeps is it until the weekend/our outing?
Chants/Rhymes/Songs
Sing a song to help children to learn days of the week in order, e.g.
Days of the week singalong or Days of the week song.
Begin to explore o’clock times by singing the traditional rhyme ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’. Sing along with this version featuring lots of different animals, that has a surprise ending: Hickory Dickory…Crash!
Story
Explore the order of events during the day by reading Frog and Toad Together: A List by Arnold Lobel. There is an on-screen version of this available too.
Read a story book about months, e.g. Month by Month, A Year Goes Round by Carol Diggory Shields or Maisy’s Seasons by Lucy Cousins.
You Will Need
Exploring and Playing
Catalogues; Sticky notes; scissors; old watches (preferably both digital and analogue examples); thin card; felt-tipped pens; tape; geared analogue clock.
Active Learning
What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? by Debi Gliori (or same title by Annie Kubler); geared analogue clock; a long strip of paper; 13 cards; clock stamp; a story about days of the week, e.g. Oliver’s Vegetables by Vivian French; washing line and 7 pegs; days of the week cards; puppet; A Busy Year by Leo Lionni; month cards; balloon-shaped cards.
Creating and Thinking Critically
Geared analogue clock; digital clock; long strip of paper for the timeline; smaller pieces of paper for children’s pictures; 12 cards with times to the hour written as 8 o’clock (see resources), small clocks; bread; eggs; water; 4 different egg/sand timers (e.g. 3, 4, 5 and 6 minutes); saucepan; access to a hob and toaster; plates and cutlery; 4 egg cups (optional).