SUBJECTS/NURSERY/Numeracy

COURSE DESCRIPTION

HOME FUN Home fun is essential if the term’s syllabus is to be adequately covered. After the first week, children are given home fun, parents/ Guardians are expected to expect to ensure that home fun is done and communication books signed. CLASS AVAILABLE / AGE

• Crèche (Day care): 1 month- 1 year and 5 months.
• Early learning: 1 year, 6 months – 3 years.
• Nursery 1: 3- 4 years.
• Nursery 2: 4- 5 years.
• Basic 1: 6 years
• Basic 2: 7 years
• Basic 3: 8 years
• Basic 4: 9 years
• Basic 5: 10 years
• Basic 6: 11 years

Numeracy

Numeracy is the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that students need in order to use mathematics in a wide range of situations. It involves recognising and understanding the role of mathematics in the world and having the dispositions and capacities to use mathematical knowledge and skills purposefully. Why numeracy is important A child’s first years are a time of rapid learning and development. Babies and toddlers can recognise number, patterns, and shapes. They use maths concepts to make sense of their world and connect these concepts with their environment and everyday activities. For example, when playing, children may sort or choose toys according to size, shape, weight or colour. While much of the teaching of concepts and skills to support numeracy happens in the mathematics learning area, it is strengthened as students take part in activities that connect their learning in the mathematics classroom within the context of other curriculum areas. As they move through their years of schooling, students are exposed to mathematical:

• understanding
• fluency
• problem solving
• reasoning.

These capabilities allow students to respond to familiar and unfamiliar situations by employing mathematics to make informed decisions and solve problems efficiently (VCAA, 2017). There is also evidence that other areas of development, such as resilience and perseverance, support achievement in numeracy. Numeracy has an increasingly important role in enabling and sustaining cultural, social, economic and technological advances.

Early childhood numeracy and mathematics resource

Mathematics is everywhere

We all use mathematics to navigate our everyday decisions successfully. Children begin to experience and explore mathematical concepts from birth. With support, they participate in mathematical thinking and use mathematical concepts to organise, record and communicate ideas about the world around them. Understanding and using mathematical concepts, and being numerate, helps children know and describe the world around them and make meaning of these encounters. It is, therefore, an essential skill for successful daily life. Research and practice evidence suggest that mathematics and numeracy skills will support children to be confident and capable learners as they navigate the increasingly complex global community of the 21st century. Children who are confident and involved learners have positive dispositions toward learning, experience challenge and success in their learning and are able to contribute positively and effectively to others children’s learning. . . .They develop and use their imagination and curiosity as they build a ‘toolkit’ of skills and processes to support problem solving, hypothesising, experimenting researching and investigating. Families and educators play a critical role in introducing children to mathematics and encouraging them to be curious and enthusiastic about mathematics. From a very young age, adults invite children to use mathematics to understand and participate in their world. Building children’s confidence in understanding and using mathematics to explore and know the world will benefit everyone. Children benefit from many opportunities to generate and discuss ideas, make plans, exercise skills, engage in sustained shared thinking, generate solutions to problems, reflect and give reasons for their choices. Children who are confident and involved learners have positive dispositions toward learning, and experience challenge and success in their learning.

Numeracy in early childhood

Numeracy is the capacity, confidence and disposition to use mathematics in daily life. Children bring new mathematical understandings through engaging in problem-solving. The mathematical ideas with which young children interact must be relevant and meaningful in the context of their current lives. Spatial sense, structure and pattern, number, measurement, data argumentation, connections and exploring the world mathematically are the powerful mathematical ideas children need to become numerate. When educators consider including mathematics and numeracy in early childhood programs, there is often confusion about the relevance of concepts such as algebra or statistics. Children are active learners, exploring the world and beginning to develop explanations for observed phenomena from a young age. With encouragement, guidance, experience and learning, children further develop their capacity to reflect on their own thinking processes, approaches to learning and using mathematics in their everyday engagement with their world..This resource illustrates the variety of ways that educators, working with children from birth to age five, can support numeracy learning and development.  Presented across three key mathematical concepts; Number and Algebra; Measurement and Geometry; Statistics and Probability (reflective of the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework and the Victorian Curriculum) and organised to consider children’s learning from birth to age five; early childhood educators are offered ideas for learning experiences, ways to engage families and opportunities for intentional teaching. The suggestions included in this resource represent only some recommendations to help educators strengthen and enhance numeracy learning in programs for young children. Educators will have their own ideas that will complement this collection and are encouraged to work with their colleagues, as well as children and families, to expand their ideas and resources.   ______________________________________________ SUBJECTS NURSERY

• Numeracy
• Literacy
• Rhyme
• Phonics
• Creative Arts/ Coloring
• General science
• Handwriting
• Social Habits
• Quantitative Reasoning
• Verbal Reasoning
• Christian Religious Studies

BASIC

• Mathematics
• English Studies
• Basic Science and Technology
• Pre- Vocational
• Quantitative Reasoning
• Verbal Reasoning
• National Value
• Computer/ ICT
• Phonics/ Diction
• Creative Arts
• Christian Religious Studies
• French
• Vocational Aptitude
• Literature
• Dictation/ spelling
• Handwriting
• Music
• History