The Numeracy Portfolio Committee consists of staff members from each stage. Teachers meet regularly to discuss and implement school management action plans in order to meet school targets.
Parent Help Tips - Kindergarten
Children can learn Mathematic concepts while doing many everyday activities. Some ideas on how you can help include: counting objects, looking for numbers in the environment, talking about fractions when you slice food, looking for objects that are longer or shorter than an object, discussing the sequence of events in the day, discussing the day of the week that certain events occur, identifying the shapes of items, looking at and talking about money and playing board games.
Parent Help Tips - Stage 1
Manage time and money, and handle everyday situations that involve numbers (for example, calculate how much time we need to get to work, how much food we need in order to feed our families, and how much money that food will cost);
Understand patterns in the world around us and make predictions based on patterns (for example, predict traffic patterns to decide on the best time to travel)
Point out to your child the many ways in which math is used in everyday activities.
Encourage your child to tell or show you how he or she uses math in everyday life.
Include your child in everyday activities that involve math – making purchases, measuring ingredients, counting out plates and utensils for dinner.
Play games and do puzzles with your child that involve math. They may focus on direction or time, logic and reasoning, sorting, or estimating.
In addition to math tools, such as a ruler and a calculator, use handy household objects, such as a measuring cup and containers of various shapes and sizes, when doing math with your child.
Treat errors as opportunities to help your child learn something new.
Make learning interactive! It can be pretty boring when asked to add or subtract simple numbers on paper. Instead use objects, any safe items in the house such as fruits, colouring pencils, beads, buttons etc.
Parent Help Tips - Stage 2
Play board games such as ‘snakes and ladders' with two dice and encourage your child to add the two numbers rolled. Show them how to count starting from the larger number.
Ask your child to help you work out how many more items are needed when you are shopping. "I have six apples here, how many more will I get to make 15?"
Go for a drive and point out the signs that show the distance to the next town. In the country, the numbers on the kilometre signs go down by five. Ask your child to work out what number will be on the next sign.
Have your child help share out food to the family. "How many slices will I need to cut the pizza into so that everyone has two slices?"
Ask your child to work out how much change they will get when paying for something at the shops.
Record special events on a calendar and talk about how many days or weeks before the event.
Watch athletics and swimming events and talk about the times the athletes are achieving in the events.
Have your child help you read bus and train timetables when using public transport or read the arrivals and departures board if you're at the airport.
Parent Help Tips - Stage 3
Ask your child to show you how he or she goes about solving a word problem in mathematics. The steps in the process might include trying to understand the questions, finding the pertinent information, deciding what to do, working out the answer, and checking the answer. Always highlight the key words of the question and try to put the question into a number sentence.
Provide questions to your child about real life situations by getting your child to help you in the kitchen. Cooking allows students to calculate measurement problems and apply to real situations. By students just measuring 250ml of milk they are learning about capacity without even knowing it.This could also lead to measuring and calculating mass as well as temperature if you are baking.
Shopping is also a great opportunity to use mathematical language with your child. Working out total amounts when shopping, subtracting money, working out percentages on sale items are just to name a few.
Maths Should be fun and hands on. The more time you spend with your child doing activities in which they apply mathematical skills to real life situations, the better mathematicians they will become.
Numeracy Websites
Here are some great websites that you can use at home to help with Mathematics.