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EYLF Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators
5.4: Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work
Preschool Numeracy Indicators: I analyse, read and organise the data in my world
Preschool Literacy indicators: I use language to connect with my world
Autumn is an opportune time for exploring fallen leaves. There are so many playful learning activities that can be developed from collecting leaves in our gardens. These suggestions are related to numeracy.
Ask your child to collect fallen leaves and sort into containers according to categories such as colour, shape, texture, size. Once they have classified the leaves they can compare them further to look at more specific similarities and differences. Ask them to talk about why they’ve placed leaves in each category. Ask your child to place the leaves in height order. What do they notice about width?
Try making up a simple counting song about leaves. You could change ‘Five currant buns in a bakers’ shop’ to ‘five autumn leaves…’.
Sorting and categorising objects from nature is a great way for your child to develop important numeracy skills. Numeracy vocabulary is developed here, such as shorter than, longer than. Children can count the number of leaves in containers. Which has the most? You can have your child match the numeral to the number of leaves in each container.