[Y1] Maths, Term 1 & 2

Heading into the middle of Term 2, I find myself looking over the Year 0/1 home learning material from school once again. Year 1 children study the basics of numeracy and literacy, and compared to Year 0 — where the focus sits more on settling into group life — there's a fair amount of learning packed in.

In maths, Term 1 was about numbers, and Term 2 moves on to shapes and patterns. The Year 1 maths in Term 1 covers combinations that make ten, place value, and the passing of time.

Combinations that make ten are one of the most important things to get right when a child is first learning numbers. They're the foundation for addition and subtraction later on, and for the carrying and borrowing that comes with them. There are so many ways to practise this — through all sorts of hands-on materials and games. Coloured number blocks or triangle dominoes work well. So do snacks like beans and carrot sticks, jellies and crackers, and you can just as easily use pompoms or coloured pencils to let a child grasp the numbers that make ten in a simple, intuitive way.

Place value, at this stage, is mostly about telling apart the -teen and -ty endings. Jin is deep in her counting-in-English phase right now, and counts wherever she goes. On the walk home she counts the numbers painted from 1 to 50 along the edge of the field; she counts while she's eating a snack; she counts while she's playing with her figurines. She's still in a hurry and gets it wrong often enough, but to Jin, numbers are already a familiar friend.

The days of the week and the months are something she's been taught, but watching her ask each time whether today is a weekend or a weekday, I don't think they've quite landed yet. Before long I'm planning to make a set of folding cards with the days and months written on them, to help her build a feel for time.

Term 2 brings shapes and patterns. Sometimes she uses what she's learnt with a precision that catches me off guard — one day, on the way home, she announced that an apple is a circle. Moments like that put my mind at ease: she's learning well. A worksheet for writing out the names of shapes is a lovely way to grow her English and her sense of shape at the same time.

And finally, patterns — the unit children seem to love across the board. We hunt for patterns around the house (a striped t-shirt here, a cushion filled with triangles there), and we build patterns by clicking coloured blocks together. The kind of studying that doesn't feel like studying at all.