Children\'s Mathematics

This passion for form-filling extends to form-making, relating to children’s grid

schemas (see Chapter 3).

Other clocks go through a period of transformation when children add moveable

hands and cut their clocks out. Louisa, 4:9, took this a stage further by creating a dial

for the children to select play activities in their class (Figure 8.9).

Many homes and early years settings have wall clocks and children often draw

clocks in the graphics area. Jessica, 4:6, (see Figure 8.8) selected a piece of paper

at the graphics area and she drew a clock, attempting to fit all 12 numerals

around it. In her first and second attempts Jessica could not fit the 12 numerals in

but in her third drawing she had managed nearly all 12. She was pleased with her

drawings and told the adult that ‘it is nearly milk time’.

Jessica knew that there are 12 numerals on a clock. She was persistent with

her learning and challenged herself: getting the feel for layout, space and shape.

On this occasion she was playing with a piece of knowledge and connecting it to

a real context, i.e. milk time at the nursery. Jessica carried around her sign to

show the other children in the nursery.Woods (1988) talks about children being

the ‘architects of their own learning’.

Some graphics can be seen to relate to the current class culture. A ‘garden

centre’ role-play area made Emily, 5:2, draw a vase with three flowers in and

beneath it she drew four coins – the price of the flowers for sale. Emily drew this

the day after I’d added a box of real coins to the graphics area.

Kacie, 4:9, drew a gridwith ten boxes which she filled with writing-like marks

which she called a ‘holiday list’. It was a checklist with features that were

important to her and could be ticked off.They included ‘packed lunch, look for

seaweed, toy boat, climb on rocks’ and ‘starfish (blue)’. Madison, 4:10, covered a

sheet of paper with a grid which she filled with a variety of numbers that

included a series from 1 to 11, 222 and 1010. Sometimes children made registers,

which they completed with their own or copied symbols. Other popular activities

in classes with children from 4 to 6 years are filling envelopes and making books

• both relating to containing,envelopingand connecting schemas (Chapter 3). Raj,
  4:5, drew many little grids on small pieces of paper that he had cut out and then
  attached them to pages with sticky tape throughout a book he’d made.

Environments that support children’s mathematical graphics 153

8657part 2.qxd 04/07/2006 17:23 Page 153