Helping young children learn maths at home can be fun!
February 2022
A wonderful partnership between Wordworks and the Primary Science Program (PSP) means 3,000 parents in our Home-School Partnerships network now have access to Practical Maths at Home—an educational resource for parents supporting early childhood education in South Africa.
The book enhances children’s Maths literacy informally, in a fun way, using ordinary and daily activities at home. This book has been excitedly received by teachers at their training as it perfectly complements the HSP session which covers learning about Maths. They could see how both they and the parents could use the very practical and engaging activities to make learning about numbers, shapes, time, measuring, patterns and data gathering easy and fun, whether using it at home or in the classroom. Zorina Dharsey (Director of the PSP) tells how the book was developed: ‘Once we decided to include parents and caregivers into our thinking about how to improve the quality of Maths teaching and learning in the Foundation Phase, we conceptualised this Practical Maths at Home book to include children from 4 – 9 years… Our vision for this book is to distribute it as widely as possible… to create awareness that the home and family environment of young children provides opportunities to introduce numbers, counting and many other Maths concepts in an informal and fun way.’ When asked why the PSP decided to sponsor copies for the network of Wordworks HSP teachers and parents, Zorina said: ‘This was a perfect fit for both Wordworks and the PSP’s vision for the book, and we are happy to say that we sourced funding support to print over 3000 books for wide distribution through the capable implementation of the Wordworks HSP programme’. Extending the partnership, Wordworks has now produced a series of videos for use in online teacher training, bringing the PSP activities into three-dimensional reality! You can purchase a copy of the colourful and practical Practical Maths at Home from PSP.
