Happy Lessons

Maths is a subject that many people find difficult to engage with. When I start talking to people about Maths it often brings out negative comments relating to their confidence with it. As a teacher I recognise this is because of their early association with Maths; when they learnt processes rather than concepts and never really developed an understanding of the subject. In this blog and Happy Lesson 7 I want to help parents understand better the development behind the number and non number side of Maths (Shape and Measure) Understanding Maths - Shape and Measure Young children need to have fun physically investigating Shape and Measure in order to develop their knowledge and understanding. Luckily there are loads of opportunities in the local environment or through games and activities in the home. I have had a think about how you can do this and come up with some suggestions to help you help your child develop these skills. Names and Properties of 2D shapes ...

Lessons in Life or Life’s lessons?                                                                                                My Lovely Mum Hi, if you have been reading my blogs you will know I usually talk about children’s development, but today I thought I would shake it up a bit and share some thoughts on the lessons life teaches us in general. My desire to exchange knowledge, understanding and perspective with other people runs very deep in me. When life, or in my case chronic ill health, stops you doing something that you love, you initially feel its outstretched hand all over your life. It is pervasive; it feels like it is trying to get into your very soul and to redefine you. However I have always been up for a good fight, (th...

Maths is Magic, Let's Make it Easy! - Happy Lesson 7 "I was never any good at Maths!" As a teacher I have often heard parents say "I was never any good at Maths!" and the question is why this subject more than any other bought this response? At school young children love to play around with hands on maths activities and these experiences are vitally important to enable them to really understanding basic mathematical concepts. The reason so many people feel insecure about maths is that they did not have enough of these opportunities and instead just learnt to follow a process. If you understand a concept rather than just follow them by rote you are able to apply this understanding to a variety of settings, however if you learnt it as a process, then you may become easily confused if it is not in a familiar format. Why is Maths Play so Important? Every subject has a developmental process but probably none more so than Maths. If the early concepts are...