Teaching Ideas

I'm lucky enough to be working with a maths coach this year and our Maths Bible has been primary maths by BOOKER.
It sets out the developmental order in which concepts should be taught and gives explanations and examples of hands on activities and extensions, etc.
Its been really helpful to simplify maths and go right to the beginning of concepts with the littlies.... Good luck!

This new Zealand website has some great ideas, I particularly liked the measurement one my Prep class enjoyed it.
http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/units-work

Also Queensland Education Department has a great audit tool for maths (and all Australian curriculum areas) that ensures you cover everything in the Australian curriculum, I and a friend made them into checklists for the foundation year.

You can cut and paste from them and add the elaborations from the Australian curriculum.
Helen

I've been teaching Prep for 8 years, and each year runs a little differently.

Number is the corner stone of your planning really! As someone else said, Number recognition, counting small collections, matching numbers to collections, subitising dots on a dice, putting numbers in order (0-10) are probably the first thing you need to focus on.

By midyear the expectation is that Prep kids can count and recognise numbers to 10. Many kids begin school already able to do that, so move on to teen numbers and counting by 10's with them (counting by 10's helps kids to bridge the tens to 100).

Pattern and Measurement and probability can be done as you choose and often as the kids are interested in. They are great to incorporate into your unit of work or Inquiry Based Learning.

Addition is generally introduced as a concept first (putting 2 groups together) and then recording that as a number sentence/ story and finally as an equation.

It isn't really necessary to move into abstract equations without concrete materials. Encourage kids to first count all to find the total and then to count on from the biggest numbers.

Introduce tens facts and doubles through card games and dice games and encourage their use and recognition.

Subtraction is a difficult concept for preps unless it's very hands on, so use lots of concrete materials for that. Encourage the language mostly, take away, remove, go back, etc. The key strategy is to remove items from the total, by counting back if possible.

I hope that helps a little. Every school is a little bit different, but that's how I move through the year.

Hi,

I am also a first year Prep teacher and I am using imaths. It really is excellent, and actually plans the whole year out for you. It also has some investigations for the kids to do which help challenge their thinking. They have BLMs on every topic, how to teach each lesson, and differentiation tasks for every lesson. the books are very thorough, the support staff actually get back to you, and it has really been a lifesaver for me. It covers everything in the new Australian curriculum. Maybe hop on their website www.fireflyeducation.com.au
This has been a unpaid advertisement for imaths, i really love it.

Hi,

I am also a first year Prep teacher and I am using imaths. It really is excellent, and actually plans the whole year out for you. It also has some investigations for the kids to do which help challenge their thinking. They have BLMs on every topic, how to teach each lesson, and differentiation tasks for every lesson. the books are very thorough, the support staff actually get back to you, and it has really been a lifesaver for me. It covers everything in the new Australian curriculum. Maybe hop on their website www.fireflyeducation.com.au
This has been a unpaid advertisement for imaths, i really love it.

Hi,
I'm in my second year, so please don't think I'm some kind of expert. I start with number knowledge- counting objects, rote counting, comparing groups of objects, identifying numerals, identifying number words, writing numerals and amounts, writing words- in that order.
If patterning or measurement is an interest in class (which it often is) I will run with that! Similarly, answering yes/no questions and graphing is interesting to my children at the moment- so we're doing it!
It's obviously beneficial to know the curriculum, but also you need to be on the ball as to what is an interest area with your kids!
Hope this helps!