What are finger patterns?

They support the development of more sophisticated arithmetical strategies.

• Moving fingers correctly as sing numbers rhymes
• Finger patterns 1 to 5 on each hand, initially seen and then not (bunny ears).
• Then 6 to 10
• Doubles, number bonds to 10

• Subitising – ascribing numerosity to collection of items, typically a spatial configuration of dots, immediately and without counting.
• Regular dot patterns, irregular dot patterns
• Activities using spatial patterns are very useful in helping young children to understand how numbers can be made up and also broken up.

• Count objects in daily life e.g. stairs, cars, cups, cutlery, shoes etc.
• Look for numbers around you e.g. numbers on buses, road signs, house numbers, car registrations, birthday cards etc.
• Count forwards and backwards, say number rhymes, play blast off
• Use first, second, third when describing order
• Get your child to help put out the recycling, talk about the shapes and sizes of objects and sort them
• When sorting the washing pair socks, compare the sizes of family members clothes, sort the clothes by who they belong to
• Look at patterns on clothes. Sort the clothes by colour, size, type
• Let your child fill and empty different sized tubs, cups and bottles at bath time
• Bake with your child, let them help you with weighing and measuring
• Look at the shape, size and numbers on coins
• Let your child pay for items in the shops
• Through your family routines talk about time, today, yesterday, tomorrow and the days of the week
• Count how many sleeps to birthdays, Christmas and other important events for your child
• Talk about the changes in the seasons by looking at how the environment changes over a year

Ten bags covering a range of areas of maths, all bags have a number story book inside

• Recognising and Ordering Numbers
• Size Order
• Sorting                             
• Dot pattern games
• Snap - matching
• Pattern
• Dominoes