It's important that teachers and practitioners are aware that children's mathematics doesn't only occur in adult-planned activities or lessons. The mathematical thinking they freely communicate in their play is hugely valuable for their developing understanding. www.childrens-mathematics.net

Four year old Mason drew on his 'funds of knowledge' as he wrote a string of letters and numerals, reading "SK, 714bp10". Lifting his spy gadget to his face he explained "SK is to keep the password safe. To switch it on you have to say '714bp10' - and you have to read it backwards for 'off'"!

Moving TV last night (and tonight) about the 'Mother and Baby homes scandal in England. The impact it had on one young mother who was 16 at the time was horrendous. She said they were accused of being whores and prostitutes, and she had believed she was worthless all of her life. I cried.

‪Isaac, (4 years, 6 months) was playing 'Builders'. On a play cheque he wrote a reversed and inverted letter 'a' to signify “£500.00 for all the jobs I've done at my house". Young children begin to differentiate letter and numerical symbols in meaningful contexts such as their own pretend play.

Of course it's an elephant - I can see its trunk!

It’s an elephant!

Three-year-old Sam was watching as Bradley played with a calculator, talking about and writing numerals. Sam decided to copy what Bradley was doing, and made his own marks, making a connection between the technology, numerals and writing something down.

Hooray for the teacher who created the classroom culture in which the children are free to do this!

“I’ve drawn the Taj Mahal by a beautiful rainbow river” ‘They’re so beautiful’ I respond “Do you know what the numbers are?” the child asks “The doors?” “No…they are the way I drew them, I started with 1, I did 2, and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and then I glued them on the river”

Language has its own special genres. And your toddler is working to master them all. Thread 🧵

When the education system demands things that aren't developmentally appropriate, you end up creating issues not solving them. Young children are not meant to be static for long periods of time. If we insist they are, we create 'behaviour problems' that are actually just children behaving normally.

All change! Some years ago, teachers were advised by the government to 'differentiate' tasks and activities for children. Then came synthetic phonics and Mastery Maths - with little differentiation. Now it's all change again - to 'adaptive teaching'. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose …

Thank goodness decent Americans are standing uo against Trump's madness!

Both speech and graphicacy are symbolic languages, and there are links between the early development of both. Young children will intentionally use graphical marks (i.e. scribble-marks or dots) to communicate their mathematical thinking. See: www.childrens-mathematics.net/gallery-1-ea...

Brilliant - I couldn't agree more!

Soap phone! 🧼 As they grow, children’s play becomes gradually more sophisticated - passing through stages aligned with their cognitive development. (Thread 🧵)

And for some lovely examples of children's mathematical graphics in pretend play and other contexts, see www.childrens-mathematics.net

And look! No worksheets!

Love this! The power of play! #ScotEduSky #EduSky

Good grief- they’re 2- they should be wriggly !

Crazy (education) world! What does this Ofsted inspector actually know about young children?

Check out his cool flip phone! As your baby grows as a language user they’re learning more than just vocabulary. They’re learning the social scripts and protocols that govern its use in different scenarios. 🧵

A Nursery Child draws hearts, counting them as she goes: “There are 34 children in circle time and I’ve drawn all their hearts. I’ve got a heart too, so I’m drawing my heart as well” ‘One for each child’ I respond. “Yes” she responds “Everyone has one heart, we have to look after them!” Joy!

Hey, what if instead of obsessing over how we can ‘make learning visible’ we thought instead of how we can make a learner’s power and spirit evident. #edusky #learningstories

Absolutely! Let’s stop trying to evidence learning like it’s a checklist, and start noticing the spark, strength and spirit each learner brings. That’s what truly matters, and that’s where the transformation happens. #ScotEduSky #EduSky #PlayPedagogy

Serious question: England and the UK are democracies - for children and teachers, is education really democratic?

I feel strongly that young children are children highly motivated to want to learn, and to love the process - but that the system beats it out of them, with it's narrow, reductionist system, 'one-size-fits-all' expectations and the 'school readiness' agenda!

So much this. #EduSky

"The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is Curiosity." ✒ #EdmundBurke, Anglo-Irish statesman, philosopher, and author, was #BOTD 12 January 1729. #Philosophy #Politics

Oh the joy of adding another footnote (or maybe that's one too many)!

Questions about "the biggest number", "the smallest number" and zero are coming hard and fast from the 4yr old. Pleased to report my philosophy of mathematics background has made me spectacularly unhelpful to her.

ALL children's graphics - including scribbles - are valuable. As they scribble they begin to attach meanings to them, which can likened to babies babbling. Three-year-old Finn named his scribble-marks 'night-time'. Attaching personal meanings to marks is significant in their graphical journey.

The DfE should be thinking about opening the curriculum to rich children's play, and making room for teachers' and children's imagination, creativity and innovation. The DfE urgently needs people with vision for the early years!

There once was a time that you didn’t yet realize you had hands. It’s a funny thought, but 100% true. In fact it’s not until somewhere between 2-4 months of age that babies fully “discover” their hands. (Thread 🧵)

My reply is below ... And whilst we're at it school-based nurseries are not necessarily in the children's best interests! We had many WONDERFUL maintained nursery schools that have been decimated - and Children's Centres that reached out to their communities. Where is the vision now?

@bphillipsonmp.bsky.social If you genuinely want change 'for all our children', then the government needs to lighten the load for teachers, and really understand young children's play, reading, writing and mathematics so that there is room for imagination, creativity and innovation.

Something we all need from time to time ...

It's less than three months into our year-long research project on Children's Mathematical Graphics with early years educators (in the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia), and one educator remarked, "Now I'm analysing play on a different level, and noticing lots of maths in play!"

It was such a pleasure being part of this project with @sineadh.bsky.social @elresearchsch.bsky.social @flissj.bsky.social @ioe.bsky.social. Thanks to @nurseryworld.bsky.social for the wonderful article. #education #earlyyears #WeAreIOE #UCLEast www.nurseryworld.co.uk/content/feat...

If you’ve ever had a toddler, you can probably guess where this conversation is “headed.” 🧵

Lessons in laughter: Dozens of you have shared this lovely video with me over the past couple days. And I just love that it illustrates two baby lessons in one. 🧵

And there's a good reason not to "be digital all the time - do things with your hands and see where it leads..." Research from van der Meer & van der Weel (2017), shows that using a hand to hold a pen provides the brain with optimal condition for learning - when compared to using a keyboard.

Brilliant!

The full document ‘Play Matters,’ with a foreword by @michaelrosenyes.bsky.social will be available free online from tomorrow.

Brilliant - so encouraging!! Would that every school and every early years setting would the same!!

Crispin the crow, our nursery puppet, lays 3 eggs, ready to hatch in 18 days. A child makes a calendar ‘with numbers to cross off’ whilst he waits: “I think 18 is 8 and 1” “18 is smaller than 80 ‘cus it’s on the way to 20 which is ‘ten ten’” “10 is on the way to 80 but it’s a long way to wait”

Later, choosing to use their own Mathematical Graphics, children will solve problems in their own ways. In this example, Barney was playing a dice game, and thinking about 'taking away' some of the beans in his pot, invented an arc of arrows to signify 'take away' - that made real sense to him!

One of the richest contexts for children to choose to communicate through graphics is their free and spontaneous pretend play. Communicating to others through speech and graphics in personally meaningful ways, means that their mathematical graphics will always make personal sense to them.

It is difficult for young children to use and understand the abstract written language of mathematics, without communicating their mathematical thinking their own ways. Children's Mathematical Graphics are the missing aspect of early childhood mathematics curricula. www.childrens-mathematics.net

🫠 To all women out there - wishing you a very happy International Women's Day!