Explain this
Shape and Space Without a Worksheet
How the publisher describes it:
“Written and selected by the Members of the Early Childhood Group, the aim of the activities is to provide interesting and practical activities for children as they make the transition from Foundation Stage to Year 1. This can be a challenging time for both teachers and learners.”
Review by Fiona Paterson
In brief:
I have already shared the text with colleagues and would thoroughly recommend it to teachers at both Reception level and Key Stage 1.
“Applies mathematics to a variety of subjects across the curriculum”
Shape, space and measures is an area of numeracy which I particularly enjoy teaching. While I use several strategies for introducing and reinforcing the concepts taught in this area, I am always on the lookout for new ideas. It is for this reason that I was attracted to ATM’s publication, Shape and Space Without a Worksheet - for Reception and Year 1.
This book offers an easily accessible set of suggestions for activities involving shape and space, which is relevant for both Reception and Year 1 children. The success of this book lies in its presentation. In addition to suggesting potential activities, there is also a list of the books and resources required for each activity. The themes this book explores are outlined below:
- Journeys
- Pretending
- Tangrams
- A construction site
- Irregular shape bingo
- Using the environment
- What do you see?
- Mazes
- Body shapes
- Mirrors
- Folding
- Covering
Each activity is accompanied by a list of ways in which the task may be simplified or extended to meet the needs of all the learners in your class. As such, this book is also suitable for Year 2 teachers, providing effective starting points for exploring objectives at a Year 2 level including faces, edges, sorting and problem solving by looking at tangrams.
Another strength of this book is the way it applies mathematics to a variety of subjects across the curriculum. I am looking forward to using ‘firework dances’ in PE, encouraging children to make movements and shapes to represent different fireworks, which I can then link to our work on firework safety in PSHE and our work creating firework pictures in ICT.
Shape and Space Without a Worksheet - for Reception and Year 1 is an easily accessible text which can refresh teacher’s methods for covering objectives in shape and space. While the text features many ideas, accompanied by a list of the necessary resources, it could be further improved by the addition of a section linking the activities to objectives at Reception and Year 1. Such an addition would mean that teachers could search for activities relevant to their current objectives. Even without this, I have already shared the text with colleagues and would thoroughly recommend it to teachers at both Reception level and Key Stage 1.
