Gaya (4 years, 6 months) was thinking

about her Grandad's forthcoming birthday.

She drew around a small cutting board,

explaining her drawing as a 'Hello Kitty'

cake. "Grandpa's really old, he's 30!", and 

whilst she knew his age, she drew only a

few candles (the small pink circles). Later

Gaya explained to her teacher "He really

has to have thirty candles!"

The maths: number

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities 

that are NOT counted

The teachers had asked the children

to help make an inventory of furniture 

and resources in the room, for the 

school secretary. Karl (4 years, 9

months) decided to count the ten tables. 

He then added "lots of legs" of the 

chairs beneath the tables, finally

writing the number '10' at the top.

The maths: Counting; a large quantity

The Taxonomy: Representing  quantities

that are counted; Representing quantities 

that are NOT counted

Charlotte (4 years, 2 months) and her

friend were playing with lots of coloured

pens. In each hadn't they held lots of 

pens without their tops, excitedly 

making dots and naming them as 

"Hundreds and pounds, hundreds and

pounds"!

The maths: A large quantity

The Taxonomy: Representing quantities 

that are NOT counted

Alice ( (5 years, 3 months) had made her

own dinner register, while her teacher took

the register with the whole class. Alice used

a cross to represent the children who said

they were having a packed lunch, and circles

for those having school dinners. The item she

drew in the centre is her packed lunch box.

On this occasions chosen to count the

symbols.

The maths: Quantity; data handling

The Taxonomy: Representing 

quantities that are NOT counted

After hearing the s tory A new house

for mouse, Ross (3 years, 3 months)

drew on a low whiteboard, representing

one hole at a time. As he drew each 

circle, pointing to each in turn he told

his key person, "A hole for a chicken to

live; a monster hole; a snake hole; a

baby snake hole; a dragon hole; a big

dinosaur hole". He had carefully focused

on the relative size of each hole he'd

drawn and matched each to the size of

the animal.

The maths: Matching one-to-one

The Taxonomy: Representing 

quantities that are NOT counted

Joe (4 years, 3 months) knows that

spiders have eight legs. On this day 

had been playing with some toy 

spiders in the nursery, and decided

to draw a picture of one. Like the

numerous chair legs Karl had

represented, he has conveyed his

impression of a large quantity.

The maths: A large quantity

The Taxonomy: Representing 

quantities that are NOT counted

William (4 years 6 months) was fascinated by

'Star Wars' and often played out various scenes

with his friend. Here he has drawn a light sabre

for each of his favourite characters from the

Star Wars film.  The colours are important, for

example, red is for for ‘Darth Maul’. His teacher

explained, "William draws hundreds of these 

pictures at the moment – either of light sabres

or bows  and arrows from the Lord of the Rings

- they seem to be linked to his fascination with

counting or amounts, and he will count all sorts

of objects, again and again".

The maths: Matching one-to-one

The Taxonomy: Representing 

quantities that are NOT counted