Continuous provision involves extending the learning into the physical environment; ensuring that we are consciously think about the activities that we’re selecting (the ‘why’) and what each activity will do to support children’s development (the how), so as to provide real and memorable learning.
For further guidance on continuous provision you might like to peruse the IMP scale: Item 1: Enabling environments, Item 9: Cross curricular learning and use of outside and 10B: Verbal counting and cardinality, that provide some best practice approaches and give a range of ideas to support counting, in creative and meaningful ways.
Classroom environment
To help children develop counting skills, consider arranging storage,
displays and activities to support counting in groups of 5 or 10. For
example, you might like to mark out five or ten frames for storage items,
to assist tidy-up time, or introducing five or ten frames to an activity.
For example, you see a child playing with cars and you introduce them to
a simply drawn ‘parking grid’ (a car park drawn as a 5 frame). You
encourage them to park some of their cars in the car park. Before
saying “I can see you have parked 5 cars in the car park. I am going to put 2 more cars in the car park. How many cars do we have now?”
Alternatively, you could set up three trays, each with spaces for 10 water bottles. During transition time you might say “I can see that there are some spaces for more water bottles here – how many water bottles are missing from this tray? Can you count the spaces” Alternatively, you might store different items on shelves arranged in rows of 5 or 10 and during tidy-up time you might interact with some children and say, “Oh look, I notice this shelf has space for 10 toy trucks. We have 7 already, how many are missing? Alternatively “There should be 5 books on this shelf – how many do we need to look for?”
Interactive displays / activities
Consider how you will introduce children to interactive displays/activities. The examples below could be positioned underneath an interactive wall display, on top of drawers containing maths resources, on a table top or on the carpet area. The resources below are colourful and look inviting to children, to promote curiosity. (Further reading on good practice can be found in the IMP: Item 1 Enabling Environments and Item 2 Promoting curiosity). Simple prompts, questions, pictures and images will encourage children to interact with the resources on display as they learn and investigate different number relationships using the objects provided. Adults can further support children by modelling, a ‘notice and wonder’ approach, which will enable children to engage with objects in more creative and imaginative ways.
In the first two photographs, (above) you will see similar resources have been used (sandpaper numeral cards), but in a slightly different way. In the first photograph children are making towers of cubes and in the second photograph children are making collections of small wooden bricks.
Adult prompts might include: “What do you notice about how the cubes are stacked/arranged 1, 2, 3…, Can you complete the pattern? What do you think might come next? How many will we need in the next tower? Can you show me?” “What is the difference between these two towers? How many in this towers, how many in this towers? Which has more/less cubes? Placing two towers of cubes next to one another, you could support children to subitise/count the ‘difference’ (perhaps with 1 or 2 more or less than, to begin with). Then ask “Can you subitise how many more/less? Yes that’s right, 1, 2, there are two more.”
In the third photograph, you can see clear plastic pots, with wooden numbers, with 1-10 in each pot. Then in the fourth photograph you can see some rekenreks showing different red beads pushed to the left. Each activity involved looking at the number represented either in numeral form or on the rekenrek and counting out the correct number of objects
to match that number.
Adult prompts might include: “What do you notice? I see 1 bunch of grapes in this pot and two blueberries in this pot. Shall we see what other groups we can make? What number comes next? Can you make a group of 3, of the same type of fruit?” or “How many can you see on this rekenrek…? Can you count out the correct number of small toys to match this number?”
In the next two photographs, you can see a table of mixed vegetables. This was set up as a continuous provision activity to accompany ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’ by Alison Bartlett and Vivian French. The activity was intentionally planned so that the basket contained the correct number of vegetables, so that each ‘group’ matched with a number card 1-12. This had the value of being ‘self correcting’ as when the activity was ‘completed’ the basket would be empty and each number card would have a different group of vegetables. For example, 1 swede, 2 sweetcorn, 3 lemons, 4 leeks etc. This activity was also multifaceted as in its simplest form children counted and matched some vegetables, with some of the numbers they recognised and then left to complete a different activity. However, other children were motivated to complete the whole activity and saw it as a ‘challenge’ sorting all the different groups until they had none left! *The child who has counted out 4 carrots, is correct on one level, however, the correct vegetable for number 4 is 4 leeks, there are actually 9 carrots!
Adult interactions alongside this activity may include “How many potatoes/carrots/courgettes can you count? Can you match your group of vegetables with the corresponding number card? Can you put the groups of vegetables in order from smallest to biggest? How many more courgettes are there than carrots? Shall we line them up to check?
The last two photographs, show children using different base 10 equipment to make the 2-digit number, shown on the number card. (seen here using large Dienes and Numicon). This is a great continuous provision activity, as it is open ended and children are motivated to see how many different numbers they can make with the resources that they have been given!
Adult interactions alongside this activity may include, “How many tens in this number and how many ones? Does this number have more 10s or more 1s? What do you notice about these number (e.g. 37 and 73) What is the same/different about these two numbers? How many tens do they have? How many ones? Can you think of another pair of numbers that are similar
like these two are?” (e.g. 45 and 54, 36 and 63).
Independent counting activities
Child-led activities provide great opportunities to explore, imagine and investigate, but to achieve optimal learning, teachers not only need to ensure that tasks have purpose, but that activities are well supported by adults and can be responsive to the engagement of children. This co-creation of approach is one that will bene t children most. Remember, as teachers, we’re responsible for supporting children to acquire skills and information, so we will need to suggest, model, practise, question and
listen to children if we are to harness their potential for learning.
Outdoor activities
- Large dominoes (these could be used to match and create trails around the playground but, equally, children could lead on how to use these)
- Giant dice with subitising card inserts (these could be used to determine how many steps / jumps to do but children could also lead on this)
Water play
Using a tray filled with water, different sea creatures and other props, fish / seaweed / sharks, or ducks / rocks / sticks, or frogs / lily pads, etc. children can be encouraged to subitise amounts, in different areas of the water tray. You may want to begin with only two categories, with no more than 3 in each to start with, moving onto larger groups of 5 and perhaps three categories. Teacher prompts could include, “How many fish in the water? How many pieces of seaweed can you see?” or “How many ducks are swimming in the lake? How many ducks are sitting on the rock?” or “How many frogs on this lily pad…? How many frogs on this lily pad?” moving onto “I can see 3 frogs in the water… Can you put 3 frogs on the lily pad?”
Small world trays
Using different small world items either on a table top or large tough tray, encourage children to count different items according to their individual characteristics. This is a good activity that links well with children’s interests, with topic work (such as transport) or science work, (such as minibeasts). Teacher prompts could include, “Can you sort the cars / lorries / trucks / diggers etc. into groups? How many wheels on all of the cars altogether? or “Can find all the animals with minibeasts with 6 legs, how many did you nd? How many legs do they have altogether? What about the minibeasts with 8 legs? Can you count all of the spiders legs!” You could also bring in ‘notice and wondering’ to this activity too, with questions such as, “What do you notice about the different number of wheels on the different vehicles? “I wonder if there will be more wheels on 8 cars or 5 lorries? How do you know?” Using roll play such as a ‘safari’ play tray, with a mixture of different animals and props, you might ask “Do I have more elephants or more giraffes?” “How many hippos in the water hole? Is it more or less than the number of lions in the den?
Sorting and counting fruit / vegetables and other items
Using real resources to sort and categorise things according to their type, such as, by colour, hard/soft, long/short, fat/thin, straight /curved etc, Even young children will be able to sort a small group of objects into two groups, (colour being the most obvious to them) and say how they sorted them. Some children will be able to suggest why they did notsort/include the remaining items, “because they did not meet their chosen category” e.g. long/short… they were medium! Teacher prompts could include, “Can you sort the fruit/vegetables into two groups? Which has more / less. How many in this group, how many in this group? Can you find 4 long vegetables? Can you count out 7 pine cones?
Coloured beanbags
Using different coloured beanbags, balls and other PE equipment, encourage children to sort and count beanbags / objects, according to their colour. Then place them into the corresponding coloured hoop, or bucket. Teacher prompts could include, “Which has more/less? How many more/less? How many more red beanbags? If you count all of the beanbags, how many do you have altogether?
Buried Treasure!
Using a filled sand tray or large sandpit, bury different items in the sand, such as: small world toys / people / coloured shapes / coloured jewels or cubes etc. As the children find items of buried treasure, they place them in a container. You could challenge the children to see how many they could nd using a 1 2 3 or 5 minute timer. When the time is up, children count how many items they have found. Teacher prompts could include, “How many people/ jewels/ cubes/ spiders! etc. have you found?” Jed has 3 rectangles, who has more/less rectangles than Jed. Viv has 5 cubes, did anyone collect a different group of 5?”
Variations include: Playing this game in pairs, with one pair using a rekenrek or 5/10/20 frame. As the other child nds an item in the sandpit their partner marks it off using their counting system. The winner is the first pair to nd 20 objects.
Playground markings and number lines
Teacher prompts could include, “Can you jump in 1s and 2s? Can you count in 2s or 10s? Can you jump forwards and backwards from 1-20? Ravi is standing on number 8, can you find the number that is 2 more/less than number 8?”
Home Learning:
Simple ideas, such as the ones in the ‘Interactive displays and activities’ section and also the ‘Outdoor activities’ section, can be sent home to parents, perhaps with a photograph and simple instructions for parents to do with their child, when out and about.
You could give parents a simple ‘notice and wonder’ exercise book, for children to take home each week to note down a few things they say during the weekend. Parents may wish to do these sorts of activities at home, in the kitchen or living room, or out in the garden or park, or further afield, such as a trip to Granny and Grandad’s house, a trip to the shops, etc.
Some examples include:
- A child might draw 3 children on a roundabout in their notice and wonder book and their parent might write the number 3, for the child to practise writing underneath.
- Alternatively a parent might draw their house number, in bubble writing, for their child to colour in and decorate.
- A child might buy a box of 8 ice-creams and draw/copy/stick in the front of the box, in their notice and wonder book.
- The family meal involves lots of different items to count our correctly, so that everyone gets the right equipment. A child might draw/represent a place setting, by counting how many individual items they have plate, knife, fork, spoon, glass etc. The parent might label each with a number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Parents may need further prompts as time goes on, but emphasise that pretty much anything with numbers goes! As they are engaging with their child in meaningful discussions about numbers all around them.
