In Nursery, we have been learning about measuring.
First, we practised our counting and showed different ways of showing numbers on our fingers.
We read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and then searched our classroom to find things that were longer, shorter or the same length as the Giant’s footprint. This spoon is the same length as the Giant’s footprint.
We went outside and made long and short play dough models.
We found out more about the words full and empty by filling buckets.
Today, Reception Class really enjoyed having fun with doubling. First, we warmed up by counting forwards and backwards and then subitising. (Subitising means we don’t count we say the amount!)
Then we played a doubling game with dice. Double 3 is 6.
We had lots of fun carrying on our doubling to practice our skills independently.
Thank you to all the parents who came to our Maths Parent Meeting this afternoon. I know how much fun you all had doing maths!
At St Alban’s, we believe that our ambitious maths curriculum ensures that all children know and remember more.
In maths lessons, prior knowledge needs to be deliberately activated so at the start of every maths session before new ideas are introduced, time is spent enabling all children to revisit the knowledge they will need. This REVIEW helps children to make connections and should be generative so all students are engaged in retrieving their existing schema.
A key challenge for learning is that working memory is limited.
There are lots of things that can cause it to be overwhelmed.
Learning facts to automaticity, can help to ensure that working memory remains focused on the information that is being taught.
ALL children need a DEEP understanding of the maths they are learning.
Topics last for as long as the children need to grow and embed their learning.
Remember, we are all mathematicians.
Today, Year 4 were lucky to have a maths lesson with lots of teachers from DSAT. We really thought about using different representations to help understand the structure of the maths we were doing. We used cubes to represent unit and non unit fractions.
Well done to all the children in Year 4 for their excellent behaviour. The visitors were really impressed by your positive attitude to maths and your confident use of mathematical language.
Well done. Remember – We are all Mathematicians!
Year 6 had great fun exploring the use of Cuisenaire Rods in maths. They used these to investigate different equivalents and used them to understand bar modelling.
Today in maths, Year 5 used a variety of scaled containers to measure how much water was in them. We had to think very carefully about the scale being used and the unit of measurement. This will help us when designing and carrying out our science experiments with solutions.
Year 6 have been investigating units of measure. They started out looking at length and measuring objects in the classroom and then they used weighing scales to measure the mass.
Reading scales and converting measures is a very important skill to have.
Last week FS2 were learning to add one more in a variety of ways! 
This morning, FS2 children enjoyed practising their learning in the continuous provision. They all showed their developing number sense.
In FS2, a key focus this week has been deepening the children’s understanding of 5 as a quantity by linking the number itself to the 5 fingers on one hand. Our work has helped to underline the ‘fiveness’ of 5. Isn’t maths fun!
