Introduction to Numicon

This week we received our Numicon equipment and had a great PLD session with Catherine Huxford.  Catherine did a wonderful job of demystifying the Numicon Firm Foundations structured teaching for our Year0/1 team.  

We now have a great understanding of the sequence of teaching and how this relates to the refreshed New Zealand maths curriculum.  This allows us to feel confident that as we work through the numicon activities set out in the comprehensive planning we are reaching all of the Learning objectives of the curriculum.

The first week of teaching using the numicon materials has been a great experience for me and my students.  It was really rewarding to see the learning taking place.  I was especially thrilled to see the joy and enthusiasm of the students.  One of the highlights was observing one of my ESOL students engaging with the materials.  By using these manipulatives the language barrier was removed and he was able to contribute to the class learning as easily as his classmates.

I am really looking forward to the working through this program with my students and see the growth in their understanding of mathematics.