Reception Mathematics

PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT YOUR CHILD AT HOME

Reception Mathematics

Recognising numbers

Choose a number for the week e.g. 3

Encourage your child to look out for this number ….can they spot it written down anywhere?

AT HOME

In the kitchen

On pages in a book

IN THE STREET

On doors

On car number plates

WHILE OUT SHOPPING

On shelves

On shop packaging

In shop windows

Find 3 apples, toys, spoons, sweets etc. Make patterns such as 3 spoons, 3 forks, 3 sweets…repeat.

Practise writing the number 3.

Choose a different number to focus on each week.

Shelf Sorting!

Ask your child to help you sort a food cupboard out, putting the heavier items on the lower shelf and lighter items on a higher shelf. Whilst sorting compare the items by holding one in each hand and describing which is heavier and lighter.

Spot the Difference

Draw a row of six coloured spots on a piece of paper.

Ask your child to close his or her eyes. You hide some of the spots with a sheet of paper. Your child should look and try to work out how many spots are hidden.

Repeat several times.

Try again with other numbers of spots e.g. 5 or 7.

Hide and Seek

Practise using positional language by hiding an item and asking your child to find it. You can describe to them where to look by using phrases such as: under / above next to inside in front of / behind on top of

Swap over, with your child now hiding the object and describing to you where to look.

Build a Tower

You will need a dice and some building blocks or Lego.

Take turns to roll the dice.

Collect that number of bricks to build your own tower.

The first to build a tower higher than 20 wins.

As an alternative you could start with a tower of 20 and take away the number on the dice each time. The first to exactly zero wins.

Counting and Ordering

Use old magazines, comics, greets cards etc. Cut out a selection of pictures, animals or anything else your child is interested in. Label the animals from 1 to 5 or 10.

Shuffle the cards.

Put them in order from 1 to 5 or 10.

Remove one picture, ask your child which is missing. Repeat with other numbers, try removing more than 1 at once.

Ask your child to say what number comes before or after a chosen number. You could extend to include numbers beyond 10 if necessary.