Maths
Space & Measurement
1
Lay the groundwork
Practices to whakaritea te pārekereke prepare the seedbed for all children.
Start by working with all the children in your setting. Create an environment that can support children to build skills related to Space & Measurement.
- Consider your current environment and how you could make it better.
- Talk to others about what you are already doing.
- Select practices that will be meaningful in your setting.
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Why is this practice important?
When mokopuna experience and make sense of the spatial world around them, they then learn how people, places and things are spatially related. Mokopuna will do this at their own pace and in their own way. Mokopuna bring knowledge and experiences of space, movement and location from their home, whānau and community contexts. They explore and make meaning when moving and positioning themselves within spaces, as well as exploring measurement through distance, and two-and three-dimensional spaces.How to apply this practice in your setting:
Connect with children to learn what they already know about movement and location and engage with whānau on children’s experiences of these concepts at home, or in the community. Respect the cultural knowledge they bring.
Share with whānau the ways that children experience movement and location within the setting, e.g. how they navigate indoor and outdoor spaces, large, small, open, enclosed, and how they use or create ‘pathways’ between.
Identify spaces in your setting that allow for playful exploration with movement or observation of location. How do children explore under, around, through these spaces? Do children create real or imagined pathways or circuits and how do you as a team support this exploration?
Identify and plan for regular happenings that support enjoyment and exploration of movement and position in culturally relevant ways, e.g. waiata, kanikani, kapa haka, or games for children to express movement with their bodies, or outings to familiar locations (park, bush area, shops).
As a team, discuss ways to incorporate descriptive language or gesture to identify and model spatial features and positional language, e.g. big, small, under, over, near, long way, away, next to.
Highlight spatial situations within stories, songs, games or daily routines and encourage children to notice different perspectives of movement and location, e.g. “She’s underneath, I wonder what she can see from there?”
As a team, identify opportunities for children to explore movement and location in routines and regular events, and plan ways to extend the range of these, e.g. social, verbal, dance, games, pathways between spaces etc.
Why is this practice important?
When children are curious about and explore shapes, they will try out how different shapes move or fit together. When investigating a spatial problem or posing questions, children use and test out how different shapes ‘work’ in a variety of situations, including how they can be combined with other objects. As part of this children may develop working theories. Experimenting with shapes, including combining or splitting up shapes, helps children to structure and transform their spatial world.How to apply this practice in your setting:
Take time to collaborate with children and their whānau to learn about children’s experiences of shape at home or in the community and respect the cultural knowledge and language they bring.
Share with whānau the ways that children experience and explore shape within the setting, e.g. through books, games, puzzles, art, blocks, family play, natural materials, and carpentry.
Identify and review resources to ensure that all children can access a range of culturally relevant materials that enable them to notice features, compare, rotate, flip, pull apart or combine different shapes. Are resources displayed in an inviting and orderly way throughout the setting?
Create a range of opportunities for children to engage in construction and building experiences. Allow time and space for children to select, position, adapt, predict and test out their ideas when exploring, investigating or constructing with shapes. Invite children to revisit these experiences.
As a team, discuss ways to incorporate descriptive language or gesture for the names and features of shapes, e.g. “pointy, round, straight”. Support children to communicate their thinking and experiences in a variety of modes, e.g. through gesture, movement, sign language, building models or drawing.
Model and encourage children to wonder and question as they explore different shapes and objects that relate to their interests and investigations. Show them how some materials or shapes can be folded, moved or re-shaped, e.g. folding washing or paper, and shaping sand, clay or playdough.
Why is this practice important?
When children explore movement, location and shape they also explore measurement - distance, size and quantity, e.g. a tree is located close to the sandpit (distance), same shaped blocks are different sizes (size), and different shapes made from the same quantity of clay (quantity). Exploring measurement, expands children’s understandings of concepts such as similarity and difference, length, height, and area. This helps children to classify, predict, share working theories and solve problems.How to apply this practice in your setting:
Take time to engage with whānau to learn about children’s experiences of measurement at home or in the community, and to respect the cultural knowledge they bring.
Share with whānau the ways that children might explore and use measurement within the setting, e.g. during block construction, when baking or dancing closer together or further apart.
Identify and plan further opportunities to support enjoyment and exploration of measurement in culturally relevant ways, e.g. navigating distance during siva dance, measuring handspans between seeds when planting. How do you as a team draw attention to the measurement opportunities in everyday experiences or routines?
As a team, discuss ways to communicate about the measurement aspects of movement, location or shape, including introducing rich language, e.g. “Will the fabric stretch twice as far?”