numeracy

STEaMs

Is an acronym, in our little jargon world of acronyms, for Science, Technology, Engineering, a very little a for art (just a token), and Maths… Today I heard it called what it really is, “job training”, readying our kids for those jobs of the future. It has become a buzz word, something your kid needs…

Classification according to….

We have a massive collection of plastic animals some of which I brought when I was teaching in a Montessori classroom and we were doing classification so they represent a range of major animal groups. I seem to have lost the birds since then. Helena has always liked these and the collection has grown to…

Helena has found a new function on her phone that isn’t a phone (it has no SIM card, it’s mainly for audio books) a very special function- the calculator. It has been a toy for several days now. She gets excited to show me new numbers and explains how she got them. She gave her…

Maps..

Helena got lost recently, she went on ahead and when the somewhat slower 3 year old and I arrived she was gone. It was a very stressful hour as she happily went the wrong way, realised, turned around and came back. Unfortunately I’d given her the car key so couldn’t go looking. In some respects…

learning facts – the magic school bus effect

“I like the magic school bus because it teaches me facts. It tells me interesting things. The magic school bus is cool because it tells you true stuff. It, the bus, can turn into different things. I like looking at the different suits Ms Frizzle is wearing. I really like Carlos because he’s funny, they…

$2.99 beads

Children have creativity in spades. When I was pestered to purchase a tower of plastic containers with beads all I saw were a few necklaces. On the way home Helena talked about necklaces while making music with them. So far the beads have had to have buddies, are babies, have a slide, a stage and…

This weeks little bits of random…

Why does she have to do this at night… (well apart from her mother and grandmothers being night owls) “I JUST want to see if different countries have different weights of coins”. Or this one… Possibly she’s just delaying bed time by wanting to learn to tell the time- worried I’m sending her to bed…

Home baking

Or is it kitchen chemistry? I did baking at school as a teacher – it’s a common learning tool, process cooking is the lingo at playcentre. All that measuring, lots of language, kids like it, and that following of the instructions thing, with all those steps and the essential instructional language. Well Helena can follow…

Watching Tv

We are soooo tried, I’ve hardly slept! I’m so tired, we NEED to watch TV (accompanied by some over the top acting ) Mummy? Of course I say “er NO” leading to foot stamping and complaining. How there isn’t anything else to do, really there isn’t. So her friend and I start a game of…

When a holiday programme is school

I really like the holiday programme I’m involved in. It’s how I think school should work… we have but three rules. Respect yourself and others. Respect our environment and equipment Respect play Aka the playcentre ‘rules’ which cover everything from going to the loo, keeping warm, staying inside the cones (boundary), saws, games, not being…