June 8th -12th - Revision

Classifying and Comparing

The children should be able to compare objects on the basis of one attribute:

Use ordinary household objects to ensure that your child has an understanding of all of the concepts below and can use the appropriate vocabulary. They should be able to classify, compare and order objects according to criteria below.

1. Width - Maths vocabulary - wide/narrow. wider/ narrower, wider than, narrower than, nearly as wide as

Concrete materials - scarves, rulers, candles, pencils, trees, watches, cars, doors, TVs etc

2. Texture - Maths vocabulary - compare, rough, smooth, not rough/not smooth, rougher/smoother, not as rough as

Concrete materials - boxes/baskets, 'feely' bags with a selection of rough/smooth objects e.g. paper, sandpaper, brush, ball, scouring pad, egg (hardboiled preferably) conker, stone etc.

3. Size (small, medium. large) - Maths vocabulary - small, smaller, smallest, big, bigger, biggest, not as big as, large, middle, in the middle, medium sized, order

Concrete materials - plates, toys, boxes etc.

4. 3-D Shapes - Maths vocabulary - match, colour, roll, can't/won't roll, same shape, different shape, look the same.

Children have been introduced to names of the following 3D shapes - cube, cuboid, cylinder, sphere, but may not remember them, more important that they can descibe the properties - roll/slide, stack / fit together etc.

5. 2-D Shapes - Maths vocabulary - circle, square, triangle, rectangle, colour (recognise colours), size (vocab of size and comparison), counting vocab - how many, number

Concrete materials - variety of cut out shapes (4 mentioned above) - they may make pictures when they have finished naming/sorting etc.; 3-D shapes (as above), they should be able to describe the shape of the faces of the 3-D shapes

Other Maths Language - Language of Spatial Awareness - above, under, over up, down, on, beside, between, in, next to, first, last etc.

June 2nd -5th - Revision

Classifying and Comparing

The children should be able to compare objects on the basis of one attribute:

Use ordinary household objects to ensure that your child has an understanding of all of the concepts below and can use the appropriate vocabulary.

1. Size - Maths vocabulary - big/small. bigger/smaller than, same size, compare,

Concrete materials - boxes, books, blocks, food e.g. fruit/veg, toys

2. Length - Maths vocabulary - compare, long, short, longer, shorter, nearly as long as, not as long as.

Concrete materials - scarves, ties, pieces of string, belts, game of snakes and ladders etc.

3. Height - Maths vocabulary - compare, tall, taller, short, shorter / taller than, not as tall as, shorter than, nearly as tall

Concrete materials - sweeping brush, people, flowers, trees, lego towers etc.

4. Weight - Maths vocabulary - heavy, light, heavier, lighter than, heavier than, not as heavy as, not as light as, nearly as heavy as.

Concrete materials - balance/weighing scales (if available) household objects e.g. fruit, food, toys, books, kitchen items, outdoor materials - stones, pebbles etc.

Continue counting forward backwards to 10; Number before/after within 10;

Assessment

Use this checklist to record your child's understanding

May 25th - 29th

Continuation of partitioning within 5, Calculate Mentally within 2, 3, 4 and 5,

Counting forward backwards to 10; Number before/after within 10;

Partitioning within 5

Resources needed: 5 objects e.g. lego with two different attributes e.g. colour and size)

Maths language and vocabulary (as below - set, subset, count, partition, altogether, same as, and)

Calculate Mentally Within 5

Counting and Recognising numbers and words 1-5

Practice counting from 0 - 10, asking for number before and after. e.g What comes before 5, what comes after 7

May 18th - 22nd

Data - Continue with activities below, Addition 1 - 5 (see ladybird activity below)

May 11th - 22nd

Suggested Activities at Home - It is very important to start with concrete activities before moving on to worksheets, otherwise the worksheets / maths book activities are meaningless activities. See the trajectory below to show how children move from the concrete to the pictorial to the abstract.

Concrete Activities

Setting the table. Sorting socks. sorting blocks, toys etc according to different criteria e.g. colour, size etc.;

Collect a variety of items (10 or less) from around the kitchen or garden. Ask your child to sort them. Ask them to put them into sets of items that are similar. Talk about how they sorted them - was it according to size / colour / material (stone, plant etc), edible, non edible. How many are in each set? (you could draw a chalk circles or use hula hoops and ask your child to sort objects into sets - they are familiar with the concept of sets.

Collect a variety of smaller objects - ask your child to sort them. Arrange them in columns / rows. Count them - how many in each column / row.

Pictorial Activities - use the activities below or create your own.

Activity 1 - sort the forms of transport (road, rail, water, air etc)

Activity 2 - sort the pictures according to colour - paste to a page (use paper of corresponding colour if you have it)

Sort the animals according to number of legs and past onto correct column,

Cut and sort and paste on different pages according to colour

May 5th - 8th - Time

Curriculum Objectives Junior Infants

Parents, please note that the children do not start to learn to read the clock in Junior Infants. The curriculum objectives at this level are as follows:

The child should be enabled to

• develop an understanding of the concept of time through the use of appropriate vocabulary morning/evening, night/day, lunchtime, bedtime, early/late, days of the week, school days, weekends use the language of time to discuss events record weather for each day on a chart

• sequence daily events or stages in a story pupils state the order of familiar events order pictures in correct time sequence sequence events in familiar stories and rhymes.

Suggested Activities at Home

Practice Days of Week song - the children love this song

Practice writing the days of the week. See here for writing practice sheet and/or complete pages 33 and 34 of maths book. Ask your child to find the name of the day on objects around the house - calendar, newspaper, magazine etc.

Create a calendar like the one the children use in school, displaying - Day, Month, Weather, Season and how they are feeling today; Keep a weather chart in their copy for one week. See here for examples.

Day and Night

Note: Technically, a day starts just after midnight but for very young children, we generally classify day as the hours of brightness and night as the hours of darkness. Talk to your child about the different things your family do during the day. Get him/her to come up with activities where possible, e.g. get up, wash, get dressed, brush teeth, get dressed, [go to school], learn, playtime, lunchtime, go home, dinner, bedtime etc.

Signs of Day: sun, bright sky, clouds, birds chirping, breakfast

Signs of Night: darkness, moon, stars, bed, supper, bedtime story, supper.

See maths book for extra activities page 110, page 111 and page 112

Watch the video and learn a new song:

Capacity - Activities at home

Resources needed - containers of various sizes and shapes (bottles, jars, jugs, boxes, water, marbles, pasta, rice, pebbles, lego etc.)

Vocabulary - how much? how much more? Full, empty, holds more, holds less, not as much, nearly as much, nearly full, scoops, container, up to the top/brim etc.

Activities

• Select a variety of containers suitable for holding water, ask your child to arrange containers in order, in terms of how much they think each one will hold- from less to more.

Ask open-ended questions to develop understanding (see sheet)

Check their estimations by filling with water and measuring using jug

• Use different shaped / size containers of similar capacity e.g. cuboid 1ltr milk carton and 1ltr jug / bowl and ask them to estimate which holds more or less.
  
  Discuss and explain how wider but shorter containers may contain more or same capacity as tall/ narrow containers (see sheet for discussion points)

• Do similar activities with boxes and cartons and dry materials (rice, pasta, shells, pebbles etc.)

Other activities

Learning through play (see below)

Capacity cartoon - (children should watch after doing the first two activities above)

Home/School Book - capacity pages; Work sheets

Science - Floating and Sinking activities

Number - continue to practise writing numerals 1 - 5, Incorporate counting and number in the above activities

Optional Extra - Baking activity

Video for parents on Conservation Tasks

Partitioning within 5

Resources needed: 5 objects e.g. lego with two different attributes e.g. colour and size)

Maths language and vocabulary (as below - set, subset, count, partition, altogether, same as, and)