Sep 6, 2026 · 45 min · 13 segments
We don't always think of play as offering opportunities to learn in the traditional sense but what if it was actually the most powerful tool we had at our disposal, not only creating learning…
Talking of battles then, let's talk about maths.
Now, this is not just my prejudice coming in because I know that a lot of parents find maths difficult, particularly in those earliest stages, not so much in letter forming or even in number forming or even in number ordering.
But I'm talking about like the computational aspects of math.
So I'm guessing that the very first thing is just the abstract concept of what a quantity is and numbers.
Yeah, I mean, I'd say initially you want to be making sure you're counting with physical objects.
And again, you can weave that into your day very easily, like out and about how many objects.
I don't know, cars can you see? How many red cars, you know? Just drip feeding it throughout the day.
Lots of counting, you know, if they're having a snack, how many blueberries do you have? And getting that, you know, one-to-one counting.
Going back to the monster idea with the letters, you could have, It's a pasta that you are feeding to the cardboard monster to really get that one to one counting and accuracy.
And I think a huge amount of his number recognition has come from just just looking at door numbers, to be honest.
And, you know, there's a lot of fun games you can play with number recognition.
So if they're confident with numbers one to three, just add in four and just slowly build that up.
So the majority of the time they're feeling success, build their confidence.
And maybe there's one that they're not sure about and you can support them with that and then build up.
And then keeping it within counting and working with numbers in a physical sense.
You know, you can build stories into play to look at addition and subtraction.
Go back to trains, it seems to be at the forefront of my mind at the moment.
Talking of battles then, let's talk about maths.
Now, this is not just my prejudice coming in because I know that a lot of parents find maths difficult, particularly in those earliest stages, not so much in letter forming or even in number forming or even in number ordering.
But I'm talking about like the computational aspects of math.
So I'm guessing that the very first thing is just the abstract concept of what a quantity is and numbers.
Yeah, I mean, I'd say initially you want to be making sure you're counting with physical objects.
And again, you can weave that into your day very easily, like out and about how many objects.
I don't know, cars can you see? How many red cars, you know? Just drip feeding it throughout the day.
Lots of counting, you know, if they're having a snack, how many blueberries do you have? And getting that, you know, one-to-one counting.
Going back to the monster idea with the letters, you could have, It's a pasta that you are feeding to the cardboard monster to really get that one to one counting and accuracy.
And I think a huge amount of his number recognition has come from just just looking at door numbers, to be honest.
And, you know, there's a lot of fun games you can play with number recognition.
So if they're confident with numbers one to three, just add in four and just slowly build that up.
So the majority of the time they're feeling success, build their confidence.
And maybe there's one that they're not sure about and you can support them with that and then build up.
And then keeping it within counting and working with numbers in a physical sense.
You know, you can build stories into play to look at addition and subtraction.
Go back to trains, it seems to be at the forefront of my mind at the moment.
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