Welcome to our set of EYFS resources. We have designed these, in partnership with our Early Years practitioner partners*, to support you in developing the initial building blocks for mathematical thinking, reasoning and problem solving with your children. We know how crucial these building blocks are to children's later success in mathematics. All these resources link to the
Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.
Each of them has:
• suggestions of rich contexts for exploring mathematical ideas and developing mathematical skills and concepts
• details of linked mathematics learning goals
• descriptions of the mathematical journey that the learners may take through the task
• suggestions for prompts and questions to elicit mathematical responses from the children.
Each resource starts with an activity that children enjoy and suggests how, as adults, we might work with the children to maximise its mathematical potential. For more information on using these resources to embed problem solving in your setting, please see our articles Mathematical Problem Solving in the Early Years and Mathematical Problem Solving in the Early Years: Developing Opportunities, Strategies and Confidence.
You may also wish to look at our Early Years and Stage 1 Curriculum Mapping document (Word document or pdf), which links NRICH tasks to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and the Key Stage 1 Mathematics National Curriculum in England.
In addition to the mathematical opportunities we offer, you may like to make your own, rich connections to other learning goals from other areas of learning that these resources can facilitate.
The production of these resources has been made possible by generous financial support from The Ernest Cook Trust and Higher Education Innovation Funding.
You may also like to look through these 'top ten' lists of mathematical resources for children up to the age of 5, published on the Foundation Years website.
Each of them has:
• suggestions of rich contexts for exploring mathematical ideas and developing mathematical skills and concepts
• details of linked mathematics learning goals
• descriptions of the mathematical journey that the learners may take through the task
• suggestions for prompts and questions to elicit mathematical responses from the children.
Each resource starts with an activity that children enjoy and suggests how, as adults, we might work with the children to maximise its mathematical potential. For more information on using these resources to embed problem solving in your setting, please see our articles Mathematical Problem Solving in the Early Years and Mathematical Problem Solving in the Early Years: Developing Opportunities, Strategies and Confidence.
You may also wish to look at our Early Years and Stage 1 Curriculum Mapping document (Word document or pdf), which links NRICH tasks to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and the Key Stage 1 Mathematics National Curriculum in England.
In addition to the mathematical opportunities we offer, you may like to make your own, rich connections to other learning goals from other areas of learning that these resources can facilitate.
The production of these resources has been made possible by generous financial support from The Ernest Cook Trust and Higher Education Innovation Funding.
You may also like to look through these 'top ten' lists of mathematical resources for children up to the age of 5, published on the Foundation Years website.
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Developing Pattern Awareness with Young Children
This article explores the importance of pattern awareness with young children.
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Young Children's Mathematical Recording
In this article, Janine Davenall reflects on children's personalised mathematical recordings as part of a small research project based in her Reception class.
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Mathematical problem solving in the early years: developing opportunities, strategies and confidence
In this article for Early Years practitioners, Dr Sue Gifford outlines ways to develop children's problem-solving strategies and confidence in problem solving.
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What to expect, when? Parents' Guide 2015
This short article critiques the 'What to Expect, When' guidance, written for parents who want to find out more about their child's learning and development in the first five years.
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The Value of Two
Ruth Trundley outlines her doctoral research and concludes that development of an understanding of cardinality is a crucial element of counting that can be overlooked.
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Developing Number Through Tidying Up
This article describes how one nursery setting focused on tidying up time as a context in which to explicitly target the development of number and calculation skills.
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Early years mathematics: how to create a nation of mathematics lovers?
In this article, Dr Sue Gifford outlines how we can create positive attitudes and higher achievement in mathematics, starting in the Early Years.
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Mathematical Problem Solving in the Early Years
This article describes how the NRICH Early Years resources aim to further develop young children's natural problem-solving abilities in the context of mathematics.
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A good foundation for number learning for five year olds?
This article, written by Dr. Sue Gifford, evaluates the Early Learning Numbers Goal in England, in the light of research.
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Early Years Activities format explained
Why we've written what we've written... DOWNLOAD HERE
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Show Me
In this task, children will learn different ways of representing the same number.
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Owl's Packing List
In this activity, children can practise reading numbers and counting items in order to help Owl pack for his holiday.
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Water, Water ...
This task provides a real-life context for children to compare capacities in order to choose the biggest container for their lemonade.
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Number Book
Creating a 'Book of Four' provides an opportunity for children to collect groups of four objects and consider how the groups of objects are similar.
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Balances
In this activity, children will use the language of weight when comparing objects on a balance scale.
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Cooking with Children
By following some simple recipes in this task, children can practise the skills of measuring and counting ingredients.
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Mud Kitchen
When playing in this mud kitchen, children will be using the language of size and capacity to choose utensils for different tasks.
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Shapes in the Bag
In this task, children put their hands into a bag and describe what shape they think they can feel and why.
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I Have a Box
In this activity, having access to a mystery box will spark children's imagination and encourage them to describe what they notice about the box.
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Making Caterpillars
By making 'caterpillars' in this activity, children will have an opportunity to practise using language of length and width, as well as using non-standard measures to compare lengths.
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Building Towers
In this task, children will explore 3D shapes when selecting which shapes to use in their tower.
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Paths
By making 'paths' out of different materials and discussing these, children will develop their shape and space language in this activity.
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Golden Beans
This task provides children with an opportunity to count 'golden beans' and find a number card to represent how many they have.
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Dice
This dice activity encourages children to relate the number on the dice to the number of teddies they need to choose.
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Packing
This activity involves sorting toys into categories by using comparing and classifying skills.
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Making a Picture
This task provides an opportunity for children to work together to make a picture, discussing with each other which position they want to put each shape in.
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Making Footprints
In this activity, children will develop an awareness of the faces of 3D shapes by using them to make 'footprints' in soft dough.
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Incey Wincey
In this game, children roll the dice and count how many steps to move the spider up or down the drainpipe.
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Maths Story Time
This story provides an engaging context for children to share out the treasure fairly among the characters.
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Exploring 2D Shapes
In this task, children will make shapes out of loops of string and discuss what they notice about their shapes.
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Presents
Comparing the wrapped presents in this activity will give children the chance to explore and discuss weight, including the idea that large objects aren't necessarily the heaviest.
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Number Rhymes
In this activity, the rhyme 'Ten Green Bottles' is used to encourage children to count backwards to work out how many bottles are left.
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Timing
In this task, children will practise using a variety of timers to work out how many items they can put into a jar before the time finishes.
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Long Creatures
In this task, making a variety of long creatures out of card will provide an opportunity for children to discuss and compare lengths.
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Shopping - Pirate Poundland
In the pirate pound shop, children can practise their counting skills by choosing ten items to spend their ten pounds on.
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Tidying
When tidying away toys in this activity, children will use their counting skills to check that all the toys are in the box.
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Baskets
This activity encourages children to practise their sharing and counting skills by putting small objects into some baskets.
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Tubes and Tunnels
When investigating these tubes, children will have the opportunity to practise using everyday language to talk about length, size and position.
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Position with Wellies
This task uses the familiar situation of a shelf of objects to encourage children to use positional language and follow directions to find their wellies.
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Early Years Books
Publishing information about books we have referenced (and others that have been recommended to us by you).
How can you help us develop these resources?
Send us some real examples of the activities in action
To make these resources even more useful we'd love to have:
• photographs of children engaging with these tasks
• examples of what they say
• examples of what they create
• examples of the mathematics that you created together.
Everything from one photo upwards is very welcome. Thank you.
Let us know if you have permission for us to publish what you send on the NRICH site and if you are happy for us to do that.
Send us your feedback
It could be about the layout, the activity or both.
Feel free to send a few sentences or a longer reflection.
The layout:
• How well did the layout and content communicate the potential mathematical richness of each activity?• Did it give you what you needed to try it out in your setting?
• If not, what additional information would be useful?
• Have you any ideas for making the layout of each activity even more 'user-friendly'?
The activity:
• How did the activity work for your children?• What supported their mathematical learning?
• What surprised/interested you?
Our email is enquiries.nrich@maths.org. We'd be delighted to hear from you and very much appreciate your support in developing these activities further.
*Our EYFS partners are Daphne Babouris, Penny Coltman, Sue Gifford, Emma Jones, Kirsty Lombari, Anna Tanton and Cherri Moseley.