Mathematical patterns and connections need to be
covered in natural and meaningful ways.
When children are exploring and playing with resources,
practitioners have a vital role to play in offering a commentary,
using correct mathematical language and vocabulary.
This will support the child’s development and enable them to make connections in different contexts.
Children should be given a variety of experiences and be able to repeat and revisit them on a regular basis.
Children are naturally curious and will be ready to learn
if they are interested and if they want to find out more.
So, what we offer must be inspiring, stimulating and challenging.
So, in terms of patterns and connections,
again it’s about providing a really rich and accessible environment
where patterns and connections are visible and all around.
How would you say that children who are under three make the connections with perhaps patterns that are around them?
I think it’s just ensuring that there’s lots of loose parts around the room,
that children can move themselves and access and pick up different things from different areas
and start to be able to create their own patterns, whether they notice it or not,
they might need a little bit of support from adults to say,
“Look you’ve put that one there, you’ve put that there, what are you going to put next?”
or, “What came before that?”
And start to get them thinking about the arrangement they’ve made as a pattern
rather than just they’ve placed things there because they may consciously have done it;
they may not have done and it’s our job as practitioners to support what they’ve done
and start to use the words to discuss it and make them look at it as a pattern.
Things like music is a really good way to introduce patterns
to all children and music is a multisensory so it’s supportive for all children.
So, it’s important to point out
the every day patterns that we see around us.
And thinking about in terms of shape, space and measure.
How would you say that you manage to bring that into the experiences for the children under three?
I think for our children, because they’re smaller,
they like to understand their size and feel big,
so often we take any opportunity when we get big deliveries into the nursery that come in of new resources
or new equipment that might come in really big boxes.
We’ll never just put those out to recycling we’ll always take them into the children first
for them to explore and often they love to get inside each of those boxes
and feel big and see how many children they can fit inside and they love to be able to travel through things
and over things and under things and when we were developing our new garden we were thinking of ways
in which we could incorporate that by making narrow tunnels and cylindrical things
for them to travel through and travel other objects through
for them to be able to get an understanding of spaces and shapes and sizes and how that is in relation to them.
I think it’s important with the two-year-olds
not to put any limit on the language that we’ll use with them,
and not to look at it that they’re only two and that language is too complex for them,
because if they don’t hear it, they’re not going to have the opportunity to use it themselves.
So, when they’re playing with water it’s giving them the opportunities
to talk about the levels of water are full, halfway, empty.
I’ve noticed that children begin to develop the confidence to make and articulate
their own patterns when they’re exposed to the variety of patterns that exist around them.
In my practice, I have found that by the children developing the skills for noticing,
explaining and continuing patterns, they will make the connections that will deepen their mathematical concepts.