Creative

Creative play involves children exploring and using their bodies and materials to make and do things and to share their feelings, ideas and thoughts. They enjoy being creative by dancing, painting, playing with junk and recycled materials, working with play-dough and clay, and using their imaginations.

• Sort and display collections of toys or other objects in creative ways.
• Identify 3D shapes during junk art. Create and describe structures, e.g. compare size and shapes.
• Draw, paint or glue with shapes. Create shape pictures using shapes or tangram pieces. (See First Class activity plan on Shape).
• Explore and describe 3D shapes and position during block play.
• Create and describe patterns using different materials.
• Use playdough/clay to make shapes, structures or patterns. Make comparisons and explore measures language.
• Explore rhythm and pattern within music and dance.
• Develop spatial awareness through dance and movement.

• Use CSO or other datasets to explore data of interest to (e.g., how popular is my name or investigating roller coasters)
• Explore Maths and Art outdoors by creating pictures and assigning numerical values .
• Create and describe patterns using different materials.
• Design and build complex 3D structures to specific measurements.
• Use amplify polypad music feature to explore connections between mathematics and music.
• Use spatial knowledge to programme robots or devices to move through space.

Games with rules

In the beginning children often play by their own rather flexible rules! In time they also partake in more conventional games with ‘external’ rules. Language is an important part of games with rules as children explain, question and negotiate the rules. Rules are often an important part of pretend play where children negotiate rules about what can and cannot be done.

See the ‘What’s my rule?’ game on the Junior Infant Sorting activity plan. Here the teacher only lets certain shapes into her set (e.g., four-sided shapes) and children must guess what the rule is. The game sets up the need to use mathematical language and provide explanations and justifications.

Nrich list of  games for Junior Classes

Nrich list of interactives for Junior Classes

 

 

As for Junior Classes, games with rules can be very effective for supporting (i) the exploration of shape properties, (ii) the learning of number facts, and (iii) analysing and developing strategies.

Math4Love games include examples of all of the above.

Nrich list of  games for Senior Classes

Nrich list of interactives for Senior Classes

 

 

Language

Language play involves children playing with sounds and words. It includes unrehearsed and spontaneous manipulation of these, often with rhythmic and repetitive elements. Children like playing with language – enjoying patterns, sounds and nonsense words. They also love jokes and funny stories.

• At first glance, language games may look more appropriate to developing children’s literacy. However, all mathematics teaching must attend to developing language to reason with as well as mathematical vocabulary.
• Songs, chants and rhymes are examples of language games that may have mathematical content such as counting, addition and subtraction, shape or positional language, e.g., The Grand Old Duke of York or Five Little Monkeys.
• Consider how language is developed in the Billy Goats Gruff Preschool activity plan.

Further Rhymes available here.

• Language games at the senior end may involve exploration and identification of patterns: quad; quadrilateral; quadrant; …
• There is also scope for children to solve and create riddles and puzzles which require mathematical concepts or logic to solve.
• Children could explore and create their own mathematical poems. Shel Silverstein’s work has been used as a stimulus. Richard Long’s text and art could be used as a stimulus for measurement and shape explorations.

Physical

Physical play involves children developing, practising and refining bodily movements and control. Exploratory play involves children using physical skills and their senses to find out what things feel like and what can be done with them. Manipulative play involves practising and refining motor skills. This type of play enhances physical dexterity and hand-eye coordination. Constructive play involves building something using natural and manufactured materials. As children develop, this type of play can become more complex and intricate.

• Children’s movements  and positions, indoors and outdoors, can be described in spatial terms.
• Playing with water and sand provides opportunities to explore capacity and to devise ways of figuring out which containers hold more or less.
• Manipulative or construction objects offer opportunities for counting, but also for using comparative language (e.g. wider, taller, smallest) and the terminology of shape and position. For example, see the Preschool activity plan on Block.
• Placing clothes on a mini washing line encourages discussion about size and pattern (and also refines motor skills).

• A empty grid painted or drawn with chalk on the school yard can serve as the basis for lots of different mathematical games involving movement (Outdoor activities from MathsWeek Scotland; ‘Out and About’ activities for upper primary  )
• Links with physical education can allow for meaningful mathematics integration (see this meaningful maths plan, formerly NzMaths)

Pretend

Pretend, dramatic, make-believe, role, and fantasy play involves children using their imaginations. Children use their developing language to move from thinking in the concrete to thinking in the abstract. Children may act out real events but may also try out roles, occupations and experiences in their pretend play. Early numeracy is clearly evident in this type of play, for example when children pretend to buy items in a shop.

Small world play involves children using small-scale representations of real things like animals, people, cars and train sets as play props. Socio-dramatic play involves children playing with other children and/or adults. It provides opportunities for children to make friends, to negotiate with others, and to develop their communication skills. This play helps extend language. The ability to write stories also has its roots in socio-dramatic play.

• Exploring the concept of length while measuring in the building site (e.g. using vocabulary of long/short, longer/shorter than, imaginative play using measuring tape).
• Identifying and using coins (e.g. in the shop).
• Classifying and sorting (e.g. sorting food in different ways in the restaurant – fruit and vegetables, healthy and unhealthy).
• Matching (e.g. in the home corner matching items that belong together, e.g. knife and fork, cup and saucer).
• Opportunities for informal recording/writing (e.g. writing prices on receipts in shop).

• Children can adopt roles as they engage in mathematical exploration of real life problems, e.g., different characters debating how yard space and equipment should be shared, or how a school event should be organised (first class child, sixth class child, teacher, principal).
• Scope for integrated cross-curricular mathematics and drama lessons,   which have the potential to address challenging content in meaningful, engaging ways.