Tommy (4 years, 7 months) had just 

returned from a visit to the local zoo,

and were excitedly talking about their

favourite animal, and their teacher 

suggested that they find out which was

the mort popular. Armed with clipboards

they circulated amongst their peers.

Tommy decided to represent each child's 

response with a cross, finally pointing to

the lion on the left, which had been

by six children. 

The maths: Counting 

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities that

ARE counted.

Shakkai (4 years, 10 months) drew four eyes on

his drawing of his dad, and he and his friend

roared with laughter. Shakkai said "I'm going to

add another eye ... Look! he has five now!"

The maths: Counting

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities that

ARE counted.

Nine children had been playing pretend

families, and had removed their shoes. It

was almost time for lunch and their teacher

asked how many shoes they'd need to find?

Fetching paper and pens, Stanley drew a

a horseshoe shape to represent each pair 

of legs and feet. Then counting in twos, he

wrote the numbers from 2 - 16. Recounting 

he found he's missed one pair, and wrote

'18' in his own way, at the foot of the page.

The maths: Counting in twos

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities that

ARE counted.

Tim (4 years, 1 month) was in the garden,

lifting some fence posts onto a trolley.

He spent a long time transporting the logs

to another area, and later his teacher

wondered how many logs he'd moved? His

response was to fetch paper and a pen,

to draw them, and his teacher wrote each

number as he pointed to them. Finally Tim

explained, "They're very long", and "This says

"Do not move my logs and do not park here".

The maths: Counting 

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities that

ARE counted.

Saja wrote these lines, then counted

them in Arabic (her first language): 

Wahid, ithan, thelatha, araba'a, khumsa",

then continuing in English said, "Five"

and "seven".

The maths: Counting 

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities that

ARE counted.

Lucas (4 years, 6 months) brought in a toy

octopus with numerous tentacles, and this

sparked his question, "I wonder if there are

more tentacles than my mum's age?" At first

he tried counting each tentacle but soon found 

it too difficult to keep track of those he'd already

counted, and also asked a friend to hold some

of the of the tentacles. Next he used some small

paperclips, although they kept falling off. Seeing

Lucas's difficulty, his teacher offered him some

larger 'bulldog' clips, encouraging Lucas to

reconsider his previously random groupings,

and now grouped them in tens. When all the

tentacles were held in the bulldog clips, he

counted that he had 12 groups of ten -

certainly more than his mum's age!

* Lucas wrote 10s up to eighty, then counted orally.

The maths: Counting 

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities that

ARE counted.

Jenna (3 years, 9 months) drew and counted

raindrops in the graphics area. Perhaps the

coloured pens reminded her of raindrops, or

this may have been an interest of hers, since

many children love to draw rainbows. Jenna

finally counted each vertical column before

proceeding to the next to reach the total she

had drawn. 

The maths: Counting 

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities that

ARE counted.