Time for a tour of another one of our learning spaces. This time, the maths shelves! They have been getting a lot of use lately. Here they are…

As you can see, we have 2 shelves dedicated to maths materials. I do rotate some toys and materials to keep things fresh and also according to the kids interests. However, maths is one of the areas that never gets rotated. New things are added sometimes, the shelf might get a makeover, things are presented in different ways, but they are always available. I’ve written about how we do maths before here, but basically it’s a when-the-mood-strikes type situation. The kids are free to come and go as they please. They both love numbers though so something on these shelves gets used most days. On the left we have one of my favourite things, because well aren’t they just so pretty? I love these scales. The girls are learning about weight just by playing with them.

Wooden buttons and numbers for counting.

This is a little creation I made about a year ago, one day when my oldest was asking about reading big numbers. This helped her understand about hundreds, tens, and ones. She could turn the rolls to make any number she wanted and then practice reading it.

The tin on the shelf contains these mathematical drawing instruments. The girls use them to draw different shapes and measure things.

I love these wooden dice, which were a hand-me-down. And we also have some dominoes. Just by playing with these they get a lot of practice subitising. There’s also a wooden ruler, and behind this an egg timer.

The Cuisenaire Rods would have to be one of the kids favourite things on the shelf. They are used for so many things: representing numbers, working out problems, making patterns, building, as well as imaginary play. I’m not sure where ours are from but you can find some here.

In the little basket is a mixture of various printables we have used for certain things over time. There are shape cards, homemade ordinal number cards, a number line, and lots of different number cards (the ones pictured here can be found here).

The abacus is another favourite. Miss 5 learnt to skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s by playing with it.

We also have a 100s chart sitting on the shelf which Miss 5 often uses.

And of course, on the bottom shelf is Spielgaben. If you’ve been following my weekly posts you’ll know I love it and the kids do too. It is used every single day.

I hope you enjoyed a peek into our maths space. What other materials do you use? How do you do maths at your place?

Want to see more? Check out our other learning spaces here.

Or read some more posts about how we approach maths here.