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Within the curriculum area of numeracy we aim to enable our pupils to develop skills and knowledge to help them make sense of the world around them. Numeracy is not only about exploring and mastering skills in counting and developing an understanding of number, but it involves developing a curiosity in the world around us, working out problems relevant and appropriate to the pupils’ age and stage. We practice numeracy skills across all areas of the curriculum and our targets guide specific numeracy focus within functional contexts. We aim to progress skills which will enable greater independence as our pupils move through the school toward qualification in the senior phase. Numeracy is a core skill for life and work; our pupils practice and develop lifelong learning skills in community contexts and at home.
In Room 5 we have started our new topic of ‘houses, homes and buildings’ by learning about shapes.
We have been exploring 2D shapes made from different materials and made house pictures from them. We painted with different shapes and used playdough and straws to make shapes.
Last week it was Maths Week across Scotland. We asked classes to share work that they had been doing in Maths and Numeracy. Thank you to our Primary colleagues for sharing some of the lovely learning they engaged in.
Room 17 have been combining our work on reusing and recycling with our numeracy work looking at shapes. We’ve reused lots of empty packaging to make big building blocks. This has given us a great opportunity to explore 3D shapes. Some of us thought the best bit was knocking down our towers and some of us enjoyed the smells from the packaging. We also reused empty bottles and old newspapers to make a skittles game. We had lots of fun playing skittles.
Room 12 had a great time picking brambles and making jam. Pupils used the bread maker to cook the jam. Pupils also made their own labels before taking their jar of jam home to share.
Room 17 have been busy exploring the idea of big and small. We have been applying this concept to our everyday life skills; for example, looking at big kitchen utensils and small kitchen utensils; cutting fruit into big pieces and small pieces. We have also had good fun exploring this with different sizes of balls and we have been practicing our turn taking skills at the same time. We have also been decorating our outside area with the idea of big and small too. We have been painting big rocks and small rocks to make a pretty class snake; and making wind chimes by choosing big twigs and small twigs! Our outside area is looking much more welcoming now!
Numeracy is all around us. It helps us to understand the world and process our environment. Colours, patterns, shape, size and texture are all related to numeracy and play can support our early understanding of these concepts. As our pupils develop, we focus on functional numeracy, learning about time through our daily routine, money in practical situations such as knowing we have to pay in the shop, measurement in HE and outdoor learning. Numeracy skills are developed across the curriculum.
There are lots of things you can do at home to support your child’s numeracy development. Why not some of these activities? For Primary / early Secondary learner here are some ideas. Follow the link below for more:
There’s been lots of work going on in Secondary over the last couple of weeks. It’s good to see pupils continuing to to work towards ASDAN awards and SQA qualifications while learning remotely. There have also been some very successful Google Meets and I know the staff involved in these have very much enjoyed seeing you all!
We have one young lady who working on SQA: Looking After Animals. She is taking good care of her new kitten.
We have pupils working on SQA Leisure Time Activities. This supports us in trying out new activities alongside engaging in things we already know and enjoy.
We’ve also been keeping fit, both indoors and out. There is a great range of activities in the PE Google Classroom. Please do pop in for a look if you’ve not already done so. Throwing and catching has been practised this week.
Life Skills and Independence
We continue to work on our life skills and independence. We’ve been baking: scones, a rainbow cake and savoury pancakes are a few of the recipes we’ve tried. Cooking and baking are great ways to practice our numeracy skills.
Assembly ‘Homework’
Our Secondary Assembly theme was ‘Love’ and we’ve now been tasked with showing love for someone over the next two weeks. This can take many forms: doing something to help someone else, being kind to someone, doing something that someone else enjoys, or for our staff and parents, showing yourself some kindness and taking a bit of time for you!
Following our previous Assembly where we had a theme of ‘Express Yourself’ in line with Children’s Mental Health Week, we enjoyed seeing photos of how others have done this.
Room 10 have been busy investigating measurement using different materials.
We used connecting blocks and joined them together to see who make the tallest group of blocks and worked collaboratively to create the longest group.
We also took maths out into the playground, measuring the length of lines using leaves and other materials and comparing our heights to the width of the path. There was also an impromptu lesson on volume and capacity as we watched the dumper truck put a tonne of sand into our sandpit!