Early Years 1 and 2: PE and Mathematics

EY and Lower Primary PE teacher Laurence Trengove designed this exciting and engaging PE/maths activity.  Here I will briefly outline the mathematical concepts being developed:

A game is something you can get better at because it may require specific skills or strategies.  
Five hoops are placed on the ground and 10 skittles are distributed evenly between them.  The children run, skip or dance around the hoops, moving to the rhythm of a drum.  When the drum stops, the children must move into a hoop and stand still, without knocking over any of the skittles.  This requires poise, balance and awareness of others.

Children who knock over skittles are 'out'.  One hoop is now removed and the 10 skittles re-distributed within the remaining hoops.  After each round a hoop is removed, until, at round 5, only one hoop remains with 10 skittles.  The winner (or winners) is the student(s) standing inside the final hoop who hasn't knocked over any skittles.

Mathematical concepts:

• The Counting Principles: Cardinality and Conservation
• Subitizing, i.e. knowing a quantity without counting
• Partitioning 10 and addition complements
• Division - how can i divide 10 into 5,4,3,2 groups?