CHC50113 Early Childhood Education and Care: Numeracy Learning Plan

Introduction

Early childhood education and care play the vital role in the development of children. The primary purpose of the paper is to understand the various process and activities that are essential for providing mathematics teaching to the children of 5 years and below of age. The paper will also provide the numeracy learning plan for the children to develop their knowledge in term of mathematics.

Part A 

Education in the early childhood is highly effective within the children to build their knowledge and their activity in the field. The reading from chapter 2 provides the view on the way to understand the number as well as the counting process. The very first step in the mathematical learning is to understand the numbers along with the counting process. It is one of the most effective practices for the children in their early days (Aizikovitsh-Udi, & Cheng, 2015). Being a teacher the most crucial activity is to make the education especially the mathematics education suitable and attractive for the children of five years is quite challenging. Making the children aware of the numbers is a tough job but this can be efficiently done with the help of game and other activities. Further, in the process of child education, chapter 4 provides the valuable knowledge regarding the number and even for using the number (Tucker, 2014). It helps to make the children aware of the number and even make it accessible for the children. Before providing education to the children it is essential to growing their natural interest in the mathematics. Mathematics is one of the interesting subject that could be easily learned with some techniques and activity. Educating the children under 5 years require patient and skill of performing numerous activity to attract the children.

The reading from MacDonald (2018) shows the chapter 6 which provides the view on educator roles in the mathematics education. It shows that the educator has an effective role within the process of teaching to the children because a small child is unable to learn things on their own and for that, they required a suitable teacher. Mathematics is the subject which has the core basic as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. These four are the core principle of mathematics and for the entire life and in every action these are highly required. Teaching this concept to the children of 5 years or below is quite challenging (Ma, Shen, Krenn, Hu, & Yuan, 2016). This is due to the fact that children cannot learn these symbol or number or their activity on their own and for that, some fun game, storytelling process and other activities are required to make them understand about mathematics (Developing early numeracy skills, 2018). For example; once I was teaching a small kid of 4 years old about the numbers and the addition symbol. In this, I have demonstrated the kid with a live example regarding addition and numbers to make them understand the process. When it comes to kids that also a child of 3-5 years the most vital thing is to have patience and understand their learning capacity. Most of the children can easily capture everything they saw or hear but there are also some children who required to demonstrate the activities in mathematics with the help of practical demonstration and the process of storytelling.

Part B: Numeracy learning plan 

Age group: birth to 5 years of children

Number of children: 5 children

Rationale: mathematics is the process which helps to make sense of the information that the experience along with the idea by engaging the student to think creatively, effectively as well as logically. Numeracy learning allows the student to make their base strong for the future development and also help them to calculate and find anything that is deep down in mathematics.

EYLF learning outcome: the children will have the strong sense of identity then they will be connected to the world and also contribute their learning to the world (EYLF Learning Outcomes, 2015). Then the other learning outcome are; children have the confidence and get involved with the learners, children also became effective communicators.

Objectives: The objectives of numeracy learnings are;

• To make the children aware of the numbers and the numeric terms
• To educate the children for better future
• To make the base of the children strong regarding mathematics which will help them to think critically and connect to the world

Materials or equipment: The major equipment or the material for the pre-school math learning activity are as follows;

• Select the place for providing the learning education to the children of 5 years and below
• Select the furniture that will effectively provide comfortable learning process for the children (Elango, García, Heckman, & Hojman, 2015)
• Counting toys, number boards, number game, dice, abacus, and counters are essential for the children of 5 years and below to make them learn maths and numeric values
• Manipulative set, then pegboards, lacing beads and puzzles will be required
• Measuring tape then pocket calendars, dressing boards and other products that will make the student happy and keep them attractive to achieve their attention

Learning experience process and teaching strategies: Teaching strategy is the most essential part while dealing with the children below 5 years of age. Some of the teaching strategies that could be utilised by the teachers are; cooperative learning, then hands-on approach and the play method learning (Sullivan, & Bers, 2016). The process of play method learning is the most effective as children get easily attracted towards the playing activity and they feel connected with the activity and education that has been provided within the classroom. Furthermore, the teachers can perform drama to their students and practically demonstrate them the numerical value and the process of addition, subtraction, and multiplication and division practice to the children.

Conclusion

The paper concludes the fact that early childhood education is essential for the develop net of children future and also their skill in term of critical thinking and calculation. The paper also provides the fact that teachers need to use the effective and attractive process to deal with the children and provide them with suitable learning skill.

References

Aizikovitsh-Udi, E., & Cheng, D. (2015). Developing critical thinking skills from dispositions to abilities: Mathematics education from early childhood to high school. Creative Education, 6(04), 455.

Developing early numeracy skills. (2018). Raising Children Network. Retrieved 29 September 2018, from https://raisingchildren.net.au/babies/play-learning/learning-ideas/early-numeracy 

Elango, S., García, J. L., Heckman, J. J., & Hojman, A. (2015). Early childhood education (No. w21766). National Bureau of Economic Research.

EYLF Learning Outcomes - Aussie Childcare Network. (2015). Aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au. Retrieved 29 September 2018, from https://aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au/articles/childcare-programming/eylf-learning-outcomes 

Ma, X., Shen, J., Krenn, H. Y., Hu, S., & Yuan, J. (2016). A meta-analysis of the relationship between learning outcomes and parental involvement during early childhood education and early elementary education. Educational Psychology Review, 28(4), 771-801.

Macdonald, A. (2018). Mathematics In Early Childhood Education. Oxford University Press.

Sullivan, A., & Bers, M. U. (2016). Robotics in the early childhood classroom: learning outcomes from an 8-week robotics curriculum in pre-kindergarten through second grade. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 26(1), 3-20.

Tucker, K. (2014). Mathematics through play in the early years. Sage.