Parent Information

PARENT INFORMATION

Younger mathematicians

Mathematics is all around us – eg. when we shop, cook, set the table, tell the time, share objects, estimate, take turns, keep the score in a game, observe patterns in the environment, make structures with construction toys etc…..

When answering mathematical questions some essential skills and knowledge in counting, ordering, patterning, sequencing and place value are important to solve the problems.

Counting

• Counting a collection must always give the same answer each time.
• Each object to be counted must be touched or ‘included’ exactly once as the numbers are said.
• The numbers must be said once and always in the conventional order.
• The objects can be counted in any order
• The arrangement of the objects does not affect how many there are.
• The last number said tells ‘how many’ in the whole collection. It does not describe the last object touched.

Order

Numbers can also be used to describe order – eg. first, second, third. ..

Patterns

Numbers have a particular order and remembering the order is essential – there are patterns in the way we say numbers; eg: twenty, twenty-one, … twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, … ninety-nine, one hundred, one hundred and one, and so on. Use these patterns to say, eg, what comes after 79 and also what comes before 80 by counting both forwards and backwards.

It is not essential to remember every number name because the patterns in the numeration system enable us to predict a number even if we have never heard it before.

Sequencing

Tips for generating numbers in sequence

• memorise the 1 to 13 words in sequence, since there is no inherent pattern in the sounds.
• hear the 4 to 9 part of the sequence in 14 to 19 (although, ‘fifteen’ does not sound quite like ‘fiveteen’).
• predict and name the decades by following the 1 to 9 sequence.
• repeat the 1 to 9 sequence within each decade.
• predict and name the hundreds by following the 1 to 9 sequence.
• repeat the decade sequence and 1 to 9 sequence within each of the hundreds.
• predict and name the thousands by following the 1 to 9 sequence.
• repeat the hundreds, decades and 1 to 9 sequences within each of the thousands.
• except for the teens, say the places in the order in which the digits are written from left to right.

Place Value

There are ten digits and they are given meaning according to the place they hold in a number.

Predict how larger numbers are said and written by providing opportunities to write numbers,

Each ‘place’ has its own name eg.

• 56 706 is fifty six thousand seven hundred and six not 5 million, 6 thousand, 7 hundred and 6

five hundred and six thousand, four hundred and thirty-one is written as 506 431 not 500 6000 431

• two hundred and one is written as 201 not 2001
• a new number name is not used every time there is a new decade – eg. count 107, 108, 109, 110………117, 118, 119, 120……