Maths Awareness Month: Mathematical moments matter
24 April 2025
Lauren Grocott, our early years content and engagement specialist, explains how we can support children’s mathematical learning in child-led contexts. This is the first of two blogs to celebrate Maths Awareness Month.
Lauren Grocott
Content Specialist for the Early Years
In the two-year olds room, Nasir wants to play with the cars and garage. Sienna has already tipped out the basket of cars and gathered most of them towards herself. Nasir picks up a car, before Sienna puts an arm around the rest of them. Nasir looks at the cars in front of Sienna and the one in his hand. He shouts out, looking towards his key person for help as he points to the cars.
Children are naturally curious – they often notice differences in quantity, shape and position as they play and explore. In the example above, Nasir recognises the difference in the quantity of cars between himself and Sienna, even if he cannot yet verbalise his observation.
Nasir’s key person, Fadeya, says, “It looks like Sienna has lots of cars, Nasir, is that the problem?” Nasir nods. Fadeya responds “You only have one car”. She points to the car in Nasir’s hand, before gesturing to those in front of Sienna, adding “I can see more than one car in front of Sienna. I count 11 cars. That means Sienna has the most cars, and Nasir has the least”.
Our settings are often rich with opportunities for children to make comparisons and connections between quantity, shape or position. Above, Fadeya models mathematical language - ‘most’, ‘more’ and ‘least’ - to compare the two sets of cars.
Making comparisons and connections
Fadeya could have focused solely on encouraging the children to share in the example above. However, she takes an opportunity to introduce an evidence-informed approach to early maths into this child-led context.
The approach, teaching and modelling how to make comparisons and connections, can improve children’s understanding of mathematical relationships.
Evidence tells us that comparing sets of objects, as Fadeya has, is an effective way to support children’s early mathematical development. Educators could also provide opportunities for children to:
- Arranging objects in order of size, location or position
- Identifying the ‘odd one out’ from a set of objects
- Using weighing scales
- Using ordinal numbers (first, second, third).
Planning your environment and provision carefully to provoke mathematical exploration and language is important. But, to make mathematical moments matter, it’s crucial to focus on the role of the educator.
Evidence into action
In the video below, you will see educator Vicky modelling making comparisons and connections, and facilitating mathematical language. She does this with a group of three- and four-year-olds, during guided play with some clay.
As you watch, notice how Vicky:
- Models her thinking aloud, and encourages the children to do the same
- Emphasises, verbally and with gesture, the comparisons she makes between different pieces of clay.
Next steps
The context of your setting might be very different to what you have seen in this clip. We firstly recommend looking at the evidence at the approach level, and then ‘sense-checking’ what it tells you, using your expert knowledge of your children and setting. Finally, consider how you might implement the approach – who, when, where and with which children?
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