Several children decided to make their own

dinner registers, at the same time as their

teacher. Gemma (4 years, 4 months) used

some early marks interspersed with crosses

and circles.

The maths: taking the dinner register

The Taxonomy: Early explorations with

marks: attaching mathematical meaning

Chevaun (2 years, 11 months) was playing

outside with the play kitchen, and read her

marks to her key worker, "I'm doing labels

I'm doing '4' and1'8' on the oven".

The maths: Using own early marks while

referring to the numbers on the oven

The Taxonomy: Early explorations with

marks: attaching mathematical meaning

Sam (3 years, 6 months) was watching as Bradley

played with a calculator and wrote numbers as he

did so. Sam decided to copy what Bradley was

doing, and made his own marks, thereby connecting

in his mind his new understanding of the calculator,

numerals and his graphical marks.

The maths: Using own early marks while playing

with the buttons on a calculator.

The Taxonomy: Early explorations with marks: 

attaching mathematical meaning

Stacey, (3 years, 2 months) was playing

pretend 'Take Away' cafe. Picking up a

notebook she asked her friend "What do you

like?" and her friend replied "Chicken Tikka

please". Stacey then asked, "Chicken and

chips?" and filled the page of her notebook

with the marks shown here. Finally, she

asked her friend for "Fifty pound please"

and her friend pretended to give her some

money.

The maths: Using own early marks

The Taxonomy: Early explorations with

marks: attaching mathematical meaning

Isaac, (4 years, 5 months) and David were

exploring some bathroom scales. As David

stood on the scales to find his weight, Isaac

drew on his understanding of units of

measurement (weight and length) to refer 

to David's weight, commenting, "David weighs

700 kilos, he's 60 metres heavy".

The maths: Using own early marks

Amelie (4 years, 5 months) was playing a

dice game with several other children. Each 

pair of children has two dice to roll, giving

them a chance to work out how many dots         

the two dice they had, altogether. Amelie

had not been in school long, and was very

excited by this game. Pointing to the large

letter 'e' she read it as "8", and knew the

number eight.She carefully made the dots

on the right after she had counted them.

Amelie often tells her brother, "I can do

that because I am four!" She had written

some letters of her own name, and copied

other children who had written '=' and 

numbers within boxes at the top. It was 

not known what she meant by the zigzagging

shape in the centre.

The maths: Using own early marks

The Taxonomy: Early explorations with

marks: attaching mathematical meaning

  ↵

David (4 years, 7 months) chose to write a

shopping list, itemising and referring to each

item or quantity as he wrote.

   Beginning on the right of his paper, his

continuous zigzagging line may have imitated

the action of an adult writing in longhand, or

perhaps it was his impression of cursive writing.

• The Maths: number and quantities
• Taxonomy - written number and 

         quantities: Early explorations with marks:

        attaching mathematical  meanings