Junaid Mubeen, Mathematician, Educator and Author

Rishi Sunak has come out in favour of making children continue to study maths until they are 18. But he is focused on the wrong objective: helping children to grasp numbers from an early age is far more important. Mastering numbers from a young age will have a larger and more lasting impact than forcing adolescents to study the subject for two more years.

There are proven ways of embedding numeracy in young children’s everyday lives that all childcare professionals can implement to great effect. Even if you personally do not feel very confident with numbers, it’s never too late to see that maths can be fun, playful and incredibly versatile!

Non-profit Teach Your Monster recently commissioned research which found that 67 per cent of parents believe we should be focusing on helping younger learners understand maths and 72 per cent of parents identify maths as the most important subject for their child. At the same time, more than a fifth of parents say they are not confident with numbers.

It has also been reported that a fifth of adults in the UK have maths anxiety, having perhaps struggled with the subject during their own childhood. Those who experience maths anxiety often feel judged about their own abilities, to the extent that they shy away from the subject altogether or declare that they are not a ‘maths person’. As adults, our attitudes towards maths filter down to children, who very quickly pick up on the fear and worries which may in turn impact their own relationship with numbers. 

In my experience, despite some people feeling they are destined never to excel in maths, it’s never too late to overcome our anxieties and develop a positive relationship with the subject. This is especially true of numbers. With the right approach, we can collectively make maths anxiety a thing of the past. As practitioners, we can help instil a love of numbers from a young age, which will set children up for success in maths for the rest of their lives.

The key is to introduce children to numbers across a wide range of contexts within a childcare setting – to show that numbers can be a playground full of interesting ideas and patterns that they can spend hours exploring and having fun with.

From board games and apps, to conversations at lunch time, or maths-themed explorations on day trips, there are countless ways in which children can interact with and develop their understanding of numbers.

Here are three fun, interesting and easy tips for childcare professionals to implement – just remember explore, touch, and play!

Explore

A trip to the local park, library, farm, or wherever it may be, is an opportunity to show children that numbers are everywhere and can be used to understand the world around us. Getting students to spot numbers in real-world settings is a great way to develop core skills such as number recognition and counting. 

Taking the farm as an example, think along the lines of how long it may take to get there, how many sheep there are, how many more cows there are compared to pigs, or which animal looks heaviest/tallest/fastest. Take pencils and paper and challenge children to record numbers in different ways, including tally lines, or shapes such as ovals to count the number of chicks or eggs they see.

Touch

Back in a childcare setting, encourage children to become more tactile with numbers. Getting hands-on with numbers will strengthen their intuitions around numbers (what educators call ‘number sense’) by turning calculations into concrete operations that they can easily visualise. Bringing the child’s favourite items into the activity – such as a special toy, item of clothing, or even a type of food – is a great way to generate enthusiasm for the activity. 

Ask them to pick up and count how many slices of cucumber or carrot sticks are in their lunch box or on their plate.  Or invite children to bring in a favourite item of clothing, then ask them to sort by colour, or item type – are there more t-shirts than socks?  What if they took away all the red items: how many would remain? What questions can they come up with?

Play

Games of all types encourage children to see maths as a playful subject. Lego, for instance, has endless possibilities. Task children with making different numbers with the blocks. Classic board games like Monopoly (Junior version) are a great way to introduce children to concepts like money, with the dice-rolling boosting their ability to recognise small numbers at a glance.

To strengthen independent play, digital games can bring numbers to life for young learners. The free online game, Teach Your Monster Number Skills is a great way to blend learning with play for 3+ year olds (my four-year old daughter loves it).  Set in a maths theme park, it has multiple activities that bring each number to life through puzzles and activities, while the monster characters just add to the mathematical fun.

Equally, games better suited for an outside space support exploration and discovery in a different environment and can often be played on a larger scale. The key, as always, is to keep it simple.  Think ball games – ask children to write numbers 1 – 10 on small pieces of paper, stick them onto the balls, then ask the children to sit in a circle and one by one throw the balls to their friends while shouting out the number and whether it is higher or lower than the previous number. Or hang up a washing line and ask children to peg the clothes in size order and discuss the differences. The possibilities are endless!

For childcare practitioners, it is important to focus on the fun, exciting aspect of numbers – this not only removes the stress and anxiety around maths for them, but also fosters a positive mindset towards mathematics among children. 

Remember to explore numbers in as many ways as possible, and across as many different contexts as possible. Whether it’s inside or outside, over lunch or in the playground, numbers touch our lives 24/7.

As childcare practitioners, and as parents we need to ensure that children establish a strong foundation in maths, and with numbers in particular, from a young age. When we help children secure core maths skills and confidence in their early years of education, it gives them confidence to excel in secondary school and beyond. Perhaps most of all, it means they will look forward to maths rather than dreading the subject.

​About the author

Junaid Mubeen, mathematician turned educator, series winner of Countdown, author of Mathematical Intelligence: What we have that machines don’t, and expert advisor to non-profit children’s free online game, Teach Your Monster Number Skills