Mastering Number in Reception

Mastering Number project!
Swansfield is one of the schools nationwide taking part in this exciting new project from the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) and here in Pear Class we are really enjoying it so far. The Mastering Number project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. 
 
We spend around 10-15 minutes each day (in addition to our usual Maths session) following the programme using a variety of resources to secure our good working number sense. We are working hard to improve our subitising (the ability to 'see' how many objects there are in a group without needing to count each object individually, thus saving time for more complex maths!). 
 
Please encourage your child to take any opportunity to subitise a group of objects (e.g. how many apples are there in the fruit bowl? How do you know?) and use our stem sentences, for example: "7 is made of 5 and 2 or 3 and 4, or 1 and 6!'
In our Mastering Number Sessions we use bunny fingers to represent numbers and the concept of '5 and a bit' to count larger amounts. We can easily subitise that one hand makes 5 and then we subitise the amount on the other hand, which make it easier for us to count larger amounts. 5 and a bit(3 fingers) makes 8.