Q and A…

Here are the answers to the questions we asked Sarah, the other day. Just getting round to posting it. Bear in mind these are brief and written after speaking to her, without taking any notes!

What shapes are the children at this age required to know?
Sarah lent us the Nelson Maths folder which contains the shapes the children are required to know.

Just 2d shapes?
2d and 3d shapes are needed.

Do the children just see visual representations of the shapes, ie drawn on the white board or do they get to handle and look at the shapes?
They see the shapes drawn on the board, they also get a chance to play with some 3d shapes and see what they look and feel like as well as how the shapes move i.e. roll.

How do the children learn best?
Seeing and doing. This gives them an idea of what they should be looking at and what to do with it. Repetition helps to get the information to stick in the children’s minds.

How do you ensure what the children are learning they remember?
This is more difficult, as each child learns at a different speed, however in general talking about what they’ve just done is useful and testing them in simple ways like getting them to draw you a shape, one they’ve just been learning about, is a good idea.

What material do you currently use to teach shapes?
We have 3 or 4 different softwares installed on the system which the children have access to, usually in the IT lesson. Although we do look at the games as a whole class and all play together. We have videos, which reinforce what we do in our maths lessons, and these can feature heavily depending on the circumstances.

Now we have some answers to our questions we feel more confident to carry on, knowing our game could actually be of use.