Children\'s Mathematics

matics they used allowed them to explore language related to time: ‘today’, ‘tomor-

row’, ‘next week’. They referred to the duration of time books could be borrowed,

advising ‘bring it back soon’ and ‘not too long’. They were able to relate ‘too long’

to the penalty of having to pay a fine and to use the language of money, including

‘pounds’, ‘not enough’ and ‘change’ when handling it. They counted and re-counted

piles of books involving numbers up to fifty.

This play was grounded within the children’s first-hand experiences. I had arranged

the visits and the resources were always available, but the play itself was entirely the

children’s. Having the ‘office box’ (see Chapter 8) contributed to the development of

the mathematics language and graphics and to writing: this allowed them to write

within their play and to link their play directly to the two library visits.

Aaron and the train

The following case study is based on an article by Worthington (1998a) ‘Solving

problems together: emerging understanding’, Mathematical Teaching, Vol. 162,

March.

THE MATHEMATICS problem-solving

using repeated addition as a basis for multiplication

AGE 4- to 6-year-olds in school

CONTEXT teacher-led group

FEATURES children’s own line of enquiry

differentiated learning

A school trip

One autumn term we took two classes by train to visit a covered market in a country

town some distance away. Our focus was the stalls and the goods sold in the market:

our aim was to use the visit as a stimulus for creating an ‘autumn market’ for our

Harvest Festival in school. In the market I saw the potential for mathematics such as

measuring ingredients to make biscuits, weighing bird seed into small bags, count-

ing equal numbers of bulbs into flower pots and paying and giving change. However,

on our return it was clear that something unexpected had excited Aaron: it was the

crowded train on which we’d travelled on our return journey that had really

impressed him.

Aaron’s question

When we sat down to chat about our visit the following day Aaron remarked ‘I bet

there’s a million seats in the train!’ We discussed how we might find out the number

of seats and the children offered several suggestions – the library, computer, head-

teacher – and then one child suggested we ‘phone the train people’. Once I had

helped Aaron dial the correct number for the local railway station he was able to ask

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