Welcome to my blog about my experiences working in early childhood. I have called it Nurturing Forests because I believe that raising children is not a isolated activity but takes a whole community.



As early childhood professionals, we are actively involved in this process but we also need to work closely with the children, parents, community as a whole and other allied professionals.



I hope you enjoy my site. I also have a facebook site of the same name where I provide links to useful sites for teachers, parents and others interested in the early childhood: www.facebook.com/nurturingforests



Monday, April 4, 2011

Maths Links: Early mathematical thinking

Thank you for all your feedback and positive comments about yesterday's post. Hopefully I can live up to everyone's expectations now :)

I think off the top of my head the winner was documentation as a place to start which I will try and do a post about over the next few days. If you are keen to look at template/ ideas Carly over at Early Childhood Resources did a post today about observations, the format she recommended is similar to one of the tools I use (probably the influence of the same uni at very similar times).

But as today is Monday it's time for Joyful Learner's maths links... Head over and check it out for some great maths ideas www.joyfullearner.blogspot.com

The main thing I wanted to share with you was some quick places that will quickly get you up to speed on the latest maths research if you haven't studied recently.

One of the best places to start is the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers position statement on early childhood maths which you can find here: http://www.aamt.edu.au/content/download/721/19509/file/earlymaths_a3.pdf

A article about common misconceptions about maths education in the early years: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/australian_journal_of_early_childhood/ajec_index_abstracts/early_childhood_teachers_misconceptions_about_mathematics_education_for_young_children_in_the_united_states.html

Dr Jenni Way highly recommends the following book for excellent practical and up to date advice on applying maths in the early years:
Dr Kate Tucker,2010, Mathematics Through Play in the Early years (2nd ed.) Sage books. This is the book depository link for you: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781848608849/Mathematics-Through-Play-in-the-Early-Years.
To paraphrase Jenni "I have been waiting for years to find one I could recommend and this one is it". It's only $33 and free worldwide delivery! And tax deductible if you work in the industry. Have just ordered it myself.

So there's some reading to whet your appetite... Next Monday I will write about the vital importance of developing patterning skills in the early years.


Posted by Wendy

"we are the change we have been waiting for" - Barack Obama

4 comments:

  1. Hi Wendy,
    Thank you for recommending the Math Links but as of this Monday, love2learn2day will be taking over the links. It should be exciting! The articles on early math education sound interesting. I'll be checking them out. Thanks for linking up with us!

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  2. I just read the article on the misconceptions of math education in the early years and forwarded it to friends. Great article!

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  3. Thank you so much for posting this. I look forward to reading them. We need to be paying a lot more attention to the needs of young children in math and other subjects. Thanks for linking up at Math Monday!

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