A positive attitude towards and an understanding of mathematical concepts are important in everyday life. These develop slowly in young children, so they need opportunities to revisit activities and to experience mathematical ideas in many different contexts. 

All areas of indoor and outdoor play, everyday routines, songs, rhymes, jingles, stories and games provide opportunities to foster children’s understanding of mathematical concepts such as sorting, matching, comparing, classifying, counting and making patterns.

 

Children will be learning to: 

• development an awareness of number through playing counting games, exploring the concept of first, last and next when lining and looking at numbers throughout the environment
• talk about daily routines / events in sequence
• use and understand language associated with size, quantity and position
• talk about everyday shapes during play activities e.g. circular plates, triangular toast, rectangular windows
• sort and group by size / pattern / shape / colour
• copy, continue and create a repeating pattern 
• count objects accurately in the course of play