Developing Understanding in Primary Mathematics - Key Stages 1 & 2 (PDFDrive)

Developing Understanding in Primary
Mathematics
Developing
Understanding in
Primary Mathematics:
Key Stages 1 and 2
Edited by
Andrew Davis
and
Deirdre Pettitt
LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published in 1994 by The Falmer Press
Reprinted in 2003
by RoutledgeFalmer
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Transferred to Digital Printing 2003
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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© A.Davis and D.Pettitt 1994
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without permission in writing from the Publisher.
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Jacket design by Caroline Archer

Contents
1 Introduction 1
Andrew Davis
2 Constructivism 6
Andrew Davis
3 Using Story and Drama to Develop Mathematics 20
Andrew Davis, Peter Millward and Deirdre Pettitt
4 Teachers Constructing Mathematics 48
Brian Woodhouse
5 Pattern in Constructing Mathematics 61
Maria Goulding
6 Constructing Mathematics through Games 83
Andrew Davis and Deirdre Pettitt
7 The World of Sounds and Mathematical Construction 98
Andrew Davis
8 Children Drawing 115
Jennifer Buckham
9 Mathematics Beyond the School and a Summing Up 140
Deirdre Pettitt and Andrew Davis
References 164
Notes on Contributors 168
Index 170
1
Introduction
Andrew Davis
‘What is the capital of France, Smith?’

‘Er…Madrid, sir.’
‘No, Smith. Stand up! Paris is the capital city of France. What is
the capital of France, Davis?’
I had a copy of ‘The Hobbit’ on my knees. I was making furtive
efforts to read it, raising my head every so often to masquerade as
an attentive pupil.
‘Edinburgh, sir.’
‘STAND UP, DAVIS!’
The book slid to the floor with a crash, observed grimly by the
teacher.
‘What is the capital of France, Fisher?’
‘Paris, sir.’
‘Thank you, Fisher.’
The teacher slowly approached my desk. I knew what would
happen next….
Such scenes were a dreary and frequent part of my childhood at
primary school. In the nineteen nineties, it would be difficult to
discover living examples of this teaching style. Yet its model of
learning still persists. Many people, including some politicians
think that learning is a kind of copying. There are items to be
copied; ‘facts’ about number, or historical events, or gravity, for
instance. The learner takes a copy of these facts into her head.
She can then easily demonstrate her learning; on request, she can
say or write it. Teachers in this account are thought to ‘transmit’
that which is to be learned: to perform the necessary actions for
the pupil to acquire a copy of the teacher’s version of the facts.
What might these ‘necessary actions’ be? On the face of it,
standing up at the front and simply ‘telling’ should be quite
sufficient.Teachers stuff the rucksack (the pupil mind) with
contents (facts) or perhaps pour knowledge into children (who
start off empty). Shuard remarked in a famous broadcast that
pupils had proved to be very leaky vessels.
2 DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING IN PRIMARY MATHEMATICS
In effect learning per se is being equated with one of its

particular varieties, namely rote learning (Bailey, 1984). Now
arguably it is a pity that we no longer ask children to memorize
poems or historical dates. Most teachers have always expected
children to learn number bonds and tables; their expectations
have now been backed up by National Curriculum requirements.
However, the bulk of primary mathematics should not only be
taken into the memory but also digested thoroughly. Information
which is merely memorized cannot be used or applied in the
everyday world, for it can be ‘in’ the mind without being
understood.
Rote learning is a relatively simple phenomenon to grasp. Other
varieties of learning, where the ‘digesting’ is more comprehensive,
are in many ways deeply mysterious. It is much easier to attack
incorrect accounts than to tell a positive story. This book tries to
rise to such a positive challenge, for Key Stages 1 and 2
mathematics in particular. The next chapter makes some general
observations about mathematics learning, subsequently developed
and applied in practical ways.
The ‘transmission’ model of teaching, we will contend, fails to
take account of the nature of much mathematical knowledge and
understanding, and of the clear implications for the ways in which
mathematics must be learned. How then should we help children
to develop mathematical understanding? What are the appropriate
roles for the teacher?
We argue that certain kinds of classroom contexts together with
particular teaching styles, are especially likely to stimulate pupils
to ‘construct’ or ‘invent’ their own mathematical understanding. A
selection of these ideas for classroom application are discussed in
detail. The latter constitute the heart of this book. To attack
transmission theories of learning is scarcely original and we
devote only a section of the second chapter to doing so.
Nevertheless, we are conscious that criticism of such theory has
had frustratingly little effect on educational policy or classroom
practice in the last fifteen years; hence we do not apologize too
abjectly for raising objections in print yet again.1
Our experience tells us that some primary teachers agree with
our approach. Those who do and who enjoy labels could say they
were ‘constructivist’ in outlook and that they believed in
‘constructivism’. We make much use of this term. A well-thought
out constructivism am be a valuable acquisition for teachers
whose convictions were previously at the tacit intuitive level.
Views of teaching and learning held by politically influential
groups are in stark contrast to constructivism, and in such a
INTRODUCTION 3
climate it is especially important to be able to support practice

with a coherent and readily justifiable theoretical position.
Transmission culture was thought to be very much in retreat in
the fifties and sixties. It is often claimed that the scene was
dominated then by child-centred ideas. Child-centredness meant
different things to different people. It referred to styles of teaching,
to a set of moral attitudes to children and in particular to the view
that pupils should exercise substantial control over their own
learning. Confusion abounded, but lurking behind some of the
opposition to the then prevailing fashion for formal whole class
teaching was an intuitive rejection of transmission as a model of
teaching and learning. However, even that rejection itself was
confused with a superficial hostility to teachers talking to large
groups of children. We will see later that a constructivist teacher
may well choose at times to work directly with the whole class.
Many of us now know that child-centred thinking in whatever
guise actually made only a modest impact on the practice of most
primary schools. Transmission remained a potent model for
learning at the classroom level. Whole class teaching, with which
transmission was and still is confused became politically incorrect
on some initial teacher education courses and in some LEAs
(Alexander, 1992). For the last fifteen years or so transmission has
once more become politically correct in the context of national
education policy.
Chapter 2 outlines a version of constructivism which underlies
the rest of the book. Constructivism is quite fashionable at
present among theorists, much of it vague or incoherent. Our
objectives are not primarily academic or scholarly, and we have
therefore refrained from treating critically and in detail the
substantial ‘constructivist’ writings in the literature. To explore
the exotic landscapes of von Glasersfeld and his ilk would be of
little help to those closer to classroom practice, and for whom this
book is written. We hope to offer a straightforward and robust
version of constructivism, with clearly specifiable implications for
classroom mathematics.
Chapter 3 proceeds to examine ways in which story making,
narrative and drama can contribute to the growth of children’s
mathematical understanding. The role of the teacher is a key
issue, and this is explored in detail through many examples.
The discussion then touches on the state of health of teachers’
own mathematics. Adults, it is suggested, might profitably
experience constructing or reconstructing aspects of their own
knowledge of mathematics, thereby improving their flexibility,
confidence, and capacities to help children to learn. This thought

is examined with the help of some examples in chapter 4.
In chapter 5 some links between investigation, the search for
pattern and constructing mathematical understanding are
explored. Within investigative contexts, children can be helped to
search for patterns, and enabled to discern similarities,
differences, repetitions, and regularities given appropriate
interactions with teachers.
Games have long been advocated as valuable aids in primary
mathematics; chapter 6 illustrates ways in which games could aid
children’s mathematical construction. It is argued that it is the
package of games plus teachers playing certain roles which
provides the key to effective learning here.
Children may be helped in their mathematical invention through
engaging in practical activities using sounds, and the next chapter
illustrates ways in which this might be done. There is little which
is intrinsically ‘constructivist’ about sounds and so much
discussion is devoted to the kinds of interactions between
teachers and children in these contexts which should provide good
catalysts for mathematical invention.
Chapter 8 looks at young children’s drawing behaviour and
focuses on the surprisingly rich mathematical aspects which are
developed through this. It is argued that a deeper understanding
of children’s drawing systems will enable teachers to heighten
their own understanding of art and mathematics and therefore to
be able to improve the quality of their work with children.
Children’s experiences outside school play a substantial role in
fostering their individual creation of mathematical structures; this
affects the level of mathematical knowledge possessed by the new
Reception pupil and continues to influence developments in their
mathematical understanding while they are at school. Important
questions arise concerning the relative contribution of school and
the ‘real world’ to the growth of mathematical understanding.
These issues are examined in the final chapter. Moreover we ask
about the senses in which mathematics should be ‘real’ to young
learners, and about the extent to which this can actually be the
case. The last words in the book are left to a class teacher who
might not call herself a constructivist but who has reflected long
and hard on the challenges presented by teaching mathematics in
the primary school. Her insights are sampled to provide a
concluding commentary.
INTRODUCTION 5
Note
1 Child-centred thinkers in the fifties and sixties effectively criticized

‘Gradgrind’ teaching (a familiar reference to the Dickensian
character who was obsessed with the attempt to transmit facts to
his pupils). The objection was not, or should not have been to facts
as such, but to Gradgrind’s vision of the nature of facts and of how
they might be suitably acquired.
2
Constructivism
Andrew Davis
Introduction
In chapter 1 we met an old enemy: the ‘transmission’ view of
learning. We regard this particular model as committing three
major categories of mistake (among others).
(1) It is wrong about the knowledge which is to be gained by

pupils.
(2) It fails to understand pupil’s minds and the way they must
‘store’ what they learn.
(3) The idea of transmission itself cannot properly capture how
pupils learn from teachers or indeed from anyone.
In this chapter we cast light on these three interconnected

mistakes as we focus on the true nature of mathematical
knowledge. We will see that a proper understanding of this has
clear implications for the ways in which mathematics may be
effectively taught. We look at these implications in general terms
in this chapter, while reserving detailed discussion of their
classroom application for later.
What is Mathematics?
It is less controversial than in the sixties to insist that a necessary
condition for effective teaching is the teacher’s adequate grasp of
the subject. (But it is not sufficient; sadly pupils have sometimes
gained little mathematics even after spending long periods with
very competent mathematicians.) Furthermore, what teachers
take a subject to be significantly influences how they teach it.
For example, if history for you consisted of a collection of
discrete facts’ which would include dates and statutes together
with the definitive account of the ‘causes of important events’ you
CONSTRUCTIVISM 7
might well deem exposition to be your single most effective

teaching style. Admittedly the history-as-facts model does not
make such a decision inevitable. Neither however does it
encourage alternatives. For instance, why on such a model bother
to provide opportunities for groups of children to examine
evidence and create interpretations? At the end of the day effective
teaching would presumably be ensuring that individual pupils had
acquired the relevant facts. Investigating, discussing, and
interpreting would seem unlikely to promote this efficiently.
Suppose, on the other hand, the subject is seen as a collective
understanding of ‘stories’ about the past. ‘Doing history’ would
include attempts to create and grasp such narratives in the light of
the evidence. According to this perspective pupils could not be
treated as ‘rucksacks’ for historical facts; instead they would
require guidance in the processes of entering into these stories; in
developing for themselves appropriate narrative explanations of
past events while taking account of relevant evidence.
This is but one vivid example of the links between favoured
methods for teaching a given subject and views about its nature.
Of course, the character of history itself is controversial. Vast
passions were expended on drafts of the National Curriculum for
history. The subject is inherently political and ideological; differing
sets of values and visions of society are linked to particular
‘stories’ about past events. If history students are allowed a
measure of autonomy, then there is a risk that they may come up
with ‘stories’ which conflict with those preferred by certain political
groupings.
In sharp contrast, mathematics is viewed as ‘absolute’, as
outside political preferences (and for most, pretty uninteresting).
The minor ripples around the time of the publication of the interim
report of the mathematics National Curriculum working group and
the resignation of a right-wing Professor of Economics, cannot
hold a candle to the heady events preceding the official history
ring-binder. We can imagine much more readily that teachers
carry around with them differing understandings of history than
that they might possess distinctive conceptions of mathematics.
Indeed, the very idea that there might be more than one view
about the essence of mathematics itself may seem eccentric.
Surely, it may be argued, there is no room for dispute. Its essential
features are quite obvious. There are mathematical facts to be
understood and learned, for example, that 2+2=4 or that regular
hexagons can be used to cover a space without gaps whereas
regular pentagons cannot. There are also skills to be acquired
such as those of using a compass or protractor. The facts are
immutable, and, so to speak, ‘out there’; they are part of the

reality with which children gradually come to terms as they gain
experience and education.
Some traditionalists place greater emphasis on the ‘basics’ of
number, and could wish that primary schools spent less time on
‘trendy’ topics such as shape and probability. To that extent there
is disagreement, but the dispute is about curriculum content,
rather than the status of mathematics itself.
However, I think that we need to ponder more deeply on the
nature and status of mathematics. Once we do, possibilities of
alternative and indeed rival conceptions begin to emerge. Let us
begin with the thought that mathematics is somehow ‘out there’,
independently of us. There is an insidious mixture of truth and
falsity in this vague and rather philosophical-sounding idea. The
false elements in the mixture can distort our thinking about
mathematics learning.
It IS true in some sense that, for instance, 2+2=4, whether I
think so or not. I recall an argument with my father when I was a
boy; in a spirit of mischief I denied that God could contrive that 2
and 2 were 5. My father, concerned that I was setting limits on
God’s power, asserted that He jolly well could. My father was
wrong, I was right, but no doubt at the wrong time and in the
wrong way as usual. I was not undermining divine omnipotence
since, given the way we use the terms, 2+2 =5 does not make
sense. There isn’t anything which God can’t perform here; we have
said nothing to His discredit—any more than if we denied that He
could come up with a square circle, a married bachelor or a biped
with seven legs.
We emphasized ‘given the way we use the terms’. This draws
attention to the damaging falsity which may lurk in some
assertions of the objective and independent character of
mathematics. Such contentions misleadingly distance
mathematics from human activities. In actual fact it is people who
create and operate rules for the use of mathematical terms and
symbols. Needless to say this does not happen in the course of
one generation. This has been going on since the dawn of history.
Anyhow 2+2=4 has the meaning that it does, partly in virtue of
our agreement about how to use ‘2’, ‘4’, ‘=’ and ‘+’. We invent or
construct mathematics; it is a human product. Once thought
through and expressed, however, its truths are not subject to
arbitrary and in-dividual whim. Given our agreed use of relevant
symbols, then, as we noted above, ‘2+2=4’ conveys a truth
whether I think so or not.
CONSTRUCTIVISM 9
Speaking of children ‘constructing’ or ‘inventing’ mathematics

does not imply that next year’s Y2 pupils at my local infant school
might come up with a ‘new’ arithmetic. They might agree to a
deviant use of the symbol ‘4’, so that it meant 5. But this would be
pretty silly, and it would not mean that in the orthodox sense that
2 and 2 did not make 4. It would imply rather that our tiresomely
imaginative infants could not use the number sentence ‘2+2=4’ to
state what we mean when we say that 2 and 2 are 4, and hence
would have to have another way of stating that particular truth.
It must be conceded that this claimed combination of human
invention and objectivity can seem so puzzling as to verge on the
paradoxical. We might instead be tempted to join Plato in thinking
of mathematicians as journeying in thought within some
unearthly abstract realm and making discoveries there,
communicating them on occasion to lesser mortals. However, this
temptation should be resisted.
Paul Ernest conveniently summarizes the human invention view
of mathematics; he terms it ‘social constructivism’:
…objective knowledge of mathematics is social, and is not

contained in texts or other recorded materials, nor in some
ideal realm. Objective knowledge of mathematics resides in
the shared rules, conventions, understandings and meanings
of the individual members of society, and in their interactions
(and consequently, their social institutions) (Ernest, P.,
1991).
Mathematical Facts
It might seem that we can easily get hold of mathematical facts. We
could begin to ‘list them, filling many pages with statements about
numbers, space and shape. However, it is important to appreciate
fully that in doing this we have not actually ‘got hold’ of individual
items in any sense. Mathematical facts and concepts do not, and
cannot ‘exist’ on their own, in splendid isolation. They are
embedded within complex clusters of others.
For example, consider 2. Certainly 2 refers to that which all sets
with 2 members have in common. But it is a great deal more—2
has a position in the number system. It relates to 3, 4, 5, 1, 0,
etc.; it has an ordinal value. The richer the account we provide for
2, the more we must spell out these connections and
relationships. There is no complete story. The same point holds
good of number sentences in which 2 occurs, even of the simple ‘2
+3=5’ variety. The very identity of the fact that 2+3=5 is bound up
with its relationship with other number facts. Any attempt to

explain it has to appeal to the structure of the number system, the
conventional rules for ‘+’ and‘=’ and much else.
The Implications of this for Learning

So mathematics is not a fixed inhuman abstract system which we
discover. On the contrary it is created by us, our forbears and our
descendants; as learners we are continually inventing and
reinventing it. And what we create is a system of interlocking
concepts and rules as opposed to a series of discrete facts. It is
this system that pupils must learn. They cannot and need not
commit to memory a comprehensive list of mathematical
statements conveying the facts. There would be too many, indeed
the list could never be completed!
(They should, of course memorize basic number bonds and
multiplication tables. Such memorizing can be very effective and
efficient but clearly it needs to be highly selective. It is pointless
unless the pupil already understands that which she is now
arranging in her mind for instant access. Good teachers give
considerable thought to the best time in the pupil’s development
for such memorizing to be encouraged.)
So, the child digesting mathematics will need gradually to
acquire ownership of complex networks of concepts, symbols and
terms. However, she does not come to school in a state of
ignorance. Already present in her mind are emergent and probably
to a degree erroneous complexes of mathematical concepts. Her
mathematics will have much in common with that of her friends,
but it is also likely to be individual and idiosyncratic to some
degree.
Fresh mathematics must be absorbed by the child’s resident
mental networks. Otherwise it is taken into the mind, if at all, on
a rote basis. It is not understood, and cannot inform the child’s
future speech and behaviour except by being quotable on
demand. Even as this absorption occurs, the new learning
transforms the existing networks, sometimes trivially, and at other
times radically. Some may recall Piaget’s ideas in this regard. He
spoke of the processes of making ‘new’ knowledge fit into existing
structures as assimilation, and the modification of those
structures to cope with the fresh knowledge as accommodation,
though in no real sense are there ‘two’ processes. Piaget may
rather be seen as drawing our attention to two fundamental
aspects of the learning process.
CONSTRUCTIVISM 11
Consider Parveen, who has a good understanding of numbers to

100. She has long appreciated their function for basic counting.
She comprehends their interrelationships—that 12 is 2 more than
10 and hence that 10 is 2 less than 12, and realizes something of
the significance of the digits in several digit numbers—that is, she
is beginning to achieve some grasp of place value. She is provided
by her teacher with a programme of activities about fractions. She
learns about dividing wholes into equal parts (the ‘cake model’ of
fractions), and about dividing sets or groups into equal subsets to
find fractions of them—splitting 12 into 2 equal parts to find what
half of 12 amounts to, and so forth. One day she encounters the
idea that fractions have a place on the number line. Fractions
themselves are numbers which come between the whole numbers.
To absorb this astounding thought, she must change her existing
grasp of numbers as a system to count with. Ripples from the new
idea travel through her resident network of number concepts, and
subtle transformations occur. Numbers are no longer merely
devices for counting. They can pinpoint a quantity. There can be
nearly two metres of wool. There are any number of numbers
between the whole numbers. She can begin to make sense of
answers to calculations, such as 5 divided by 3.
New mathematical facts cannot be taken in to a child’s head
‘one at a time’ since, as we have seen, a single fact considered
alone has virtually no meaning or identity. (In rote learning a child
might be thought to acquire a single ‘fact’. Yet all that need
actually happen in pure rote learning is that the child can acquire
the capacity to produce a sentence of some kind, regardless of its
meaning. So there is no significant sense in which the child is
gaining knowledge at all.)
It follows that the pupil cannot receive a straight copy of a fact
possessed by her teacher. Whatever is ‘gained’ during a successful
lesson cannot be picked out in any simplistic fashion. Further, in
today’s activity Jane may well receive something very different
from Philip, since the mathematics in her mind at the beginning
of the lesson will almost certainly differ from his in quantity,
structure and quality (Davis, 1993; Davis, 1990).
What is it to Know Something Mathematical?

The assault on a transmission model of teaching may be
redoubled by considering more directly what it is to know
something mathematical. This is best tackled through a mundane
example.
What is it to know that 15+14=29? As we have already said, we

are discussing knowledge with a measure of understanding as
opposed to memorizing only. Let us not even attempt to specify
how much understanding we have in mind, but just make it clear
that we are assuming some. It would in fact be impossible to list
all the possible ways in which a child might show that she had
this knowledge, but we can make a workmanlike beginning.
For example, a child can certainly respond with the answer ‘29’
when asked what 14 and 15 are altogether, and would cope with a
range of terminology in which this same question might be
couched. She will appreciate that giving 14 smarties to Jane who
already has 15 will mean Jane ends up with 29, that when she
buys a pencil for I4p and a rubber for 15p she will spend 29p
altogether, that her sister who is 14 will be 29 in 15 years time,
and so on.
In effect, we have outlined a requirement that the child
possesses a relational as opposed to an instrumental
understanding (Skemp, R., 1989). Skemp asks us to imagine that
two people, say Smith and Jones, are trying to find their way from
A to B in a strange town. Smith has directions such as Take the
first right…under the railway bridge, then the second left…past
the church, then right again.’ Jones has similar instructions, but
in addition has a map, and can find A on it. If Smith follows the
directions precisely, with no mistakes, he will reach B. With a
single error, he may well become totally lost. If Jones fails to follow
the directions properly, he can use the map to find his way back
into the sequence of instructions. Or he can even devise another
route altogether. During his explorations he may even be able to
extend the map!
Smith resembles a pupil with instrumental understanding. She
may know some procedures to obtain the right answer. In the case
of 15+ 14 she may realize that if she writes the 14 under the 15,
adds the right hand digits for each number and puts the total
underneath, adds the left hand digits and puts that total, then the
teacher will tick her answer. She perhaps has no idea of the
magnitude of the answer to expect from this calculation. She may
not grasp which number is represented by the digits ‘2’ and ‘9’ in
her answer. She might even be hazy about which number ‘15’
represents, and fail to appreciate that it is between 10 and 20. If,
given the calculation 15+16, she might rigidly apply the same
algorithm, end up with the answer 211, and have no notion’ that
anything has gone wrong.
In a caricature of the Suzuki method for teaching violin, it may
be claimed that it enables anyone to learn the instrument,
CONSTRUCTIVISM 13
regardless of what is taking place or even what could take place in

that person’s head. Our pupil with instrumental understanding
alone might be dubbed a Suzuki mathematician.
Jones, on the other hand, models a pupil with relational
understanding. She might use the algorithm for adding several-
digit numbers, but has other methods up her sleeve. She would
know before she started that the answer would be around 30. If
anything went wrong, she could effect a ‘repair’ to her faulty
procedure because she knows what she is about. She has a
comprehensive ‘map’ in her head of numbers, operations and their
interrelationships. If she becomes lost, she can find her way back.
Children require rich cognitive maps of the mathematics with
which they are working if they are to achieve a good relational
understanding of it. And for the child to be capable of the almost
infinite variety of possible manifestations of the knowledge that 15
+14=29, she must possess relational rather than instrumental
understanding. To speak of ‘cognitive maps’ is to invest heavily in
metaphor whose full implications are not easy to specify. With this
caution in mind, we may suggest tentatively that levels of
relational understanding seem in part to be tied to the degree to
which the essential interconnectedness of mathematical concepts
is mirrored satisfactorily in the mind of the child. She must also
link her networks of mathematical concepts to a wealth of
everyday notions so that she can just as easily cope with adding
children, money or sweets as apply numbers to cars in the car
park or houses on the street.
It should be very clear from the foregoing that a pupil could not
simply take a discrete item (a fact) from the teacher as a naive
transmission model appears to imply. Teachers must rather
search for activities which seem likely to enhance the
‘interconnectedness’ of learners’ knowledge, and to facilitate the
development within each child of their personal and idiosyncratic
networks of concepts. Much of this book is designed to support
such a search.
Constructivism and the Control of Learning

Having discussed objections to the transmission model of learning
in particular, we proceed to make some further general
observations about our constructivism. While its language may be
unfamiliar to some, there are many for whom the apparent
emphasis on learning rather than teaching will have Piagetian
echoes. Constructivism in the broadest sense owes fundamental
intellectual debts to Piaget. Yet this association also has its
disadvantages. A great deal of Piagetian baggage must be

discarded in our search for a defensible constructivism.
The constructivist might, for instance be Piagetian enough to
say that he focuses on learning rather than teaching. This would
be an error of judgment. It would allow the term ‘teaching’ to be
hijacked and to be reserved for teacher activities ‘from the front’,
where ‘telling’ children dominates the scene.
In protest at this attempt at verbal piracy, it must be asserted
that a great variety of actions, processes and styles may
appropriately be characterized as teaching. Explanation and
exposition have their place, and may have been neglected in
recent decades. Yet we also need to consider listening, discussing,
questioning, hypothesizing, inviting pupils to hypothesize or
speculate, demonstrating, acting as a reference book, refusing to
answer, joining in children’s play and many other forms of
behaviour. All these could be teaching. Once this is realized, we
can briskly deny that our constructivism is focusing on learning
rather than teaching. It has major implications for both.
A group of five-year-olds are playing with Duplo. Plastic people
smile from the doors of their plastic houses. A lorry carries ‘bottles
of milk’ to the houses.
‘How many bottles does the lady in the blue house want today?’
inquires the teacher.
‘Two,’ responds a child.
‘You’d better leave a message for the milkman then.’
The child obtains a piece of card and a felt tip pen, and proceeds
is to draw two bottles on it. The card is then deposited on the
‘doorstep’. The rest of the group join in with enthusiasm.
Without too much in the way of heavy pressure, the teacher
succeeds in acquiring the role of milkman after the game has been
under way for a few minutes. Where a child has asked for one pint
of milk, the teacher leaves two. A message for two pints elicits a
response of three.
‘This milkman is silly,’ a child announces, with some
enjoyment.
‘I bet you can’t make the silly milkman give you the milk you
really want,’ remarks the teacher provocatively.
Some of the children ignore this. Steven, however is intrigued. He
ponders the problem for a moment, and then grins privately to
himself. He puts out a message for one pint. The milkman leaves
two.
‘Ha! Ha! Caught you, silly milkman. I wanted two pints. That’s
why I said one pint!’
CONSTRUCTIVISM 15
There is now a clamour to be allowed to be the silly milkman.

The teacher, with some uneasiness at exercising this degree of
control, relinquishes her role only on condition that the next
milkman does not simply mimic her silliness, but must decide on
a new way of being silly. After some false starts in which the rules
are changed each time instead of a new pattern of deviance being
allowed to settle down, the milkman learns to keep to a rule of
leaving two pints too many.
Later, after the teacher has been away from the game for some
time, there are difficulties because Steven has gone for the rule of
‘one too few’, and Anna puts out the agreed message for ‘no pints
today please’ (the message for indicating zero itself having given
rise to much heated argument). The teacher returns to quell the
acrimony; she cannot make any suggestion to solve the problem
and neither can the children. That is a risk when children take
charge of games and the mathematics that may be part of them.
This is but one instance of a type of activity we will be saying a
good deal more about in the next chapter. It shows the location of
control over key aspects of a mathematics task moving away from
the teacher to the pupil. Pupils may from time to time begin to
make decisions about who they work with. They may select which
materials to use, and how long to carry on with a particular task.
They may, either alone or in groups, set up new problems and
proceed to solve them.
No one is suggesting that it is wrong for teachers to exercise
substantial control over children’s learning. It may well be highly
appropriate on many occasions. So what is the justification for
relinquishing selected aspects of control in some lessons?
The beginnings of one possible answer is as follows. We have
just noted that children differ one from another in respect of their
current mathematical attainment, often in extremely complex
ways not readily identifiable by the most perceptive teacher. While
children will not always know which piece of learning they can
best tackle next, they necessarily have a form of privileged
awareness of their own understanding levels and of their
associated feelings. They may not be able to tell their teachers
directly about all this. Admittedly self-inspection need not provide
infallible insights. Yet children could still make decisions to some
extent based on such self-awareness if given the opportunity. Why
not then sometimes provide them with scope to decide for
themselves how and at what level to tackle problems? Their
choices may well turn out to be soundly based on knowledge about
their own conceptual mastery, knowledge wholly or partially
unavailable to their teacher.
The ‘silly milkman’ play activity shows a teacher teaching, but in

a variety of guises, none of them having much to do with
‘delivering’. It demonstrates the risks that activities will develop in
directions not amenable to carefully pre-specified mathematical
objectives; abandoning teaching as ‘transmission’ means setting
aside that control opportunity. During their play, pupils initiate
ideas in which they have confidence; the level of their thinking
should closely relate to their own mathematical competence in
this relaxed and open context.
Recent publications from NCC and SEAC have made familiar the
distinction between ‘differentiation by task’ and ‘differentiation by
outcome’. In the former approach the teacher sets tasks according
to the pupils’ level of knowledge, understanding and skills. In the
latter approach the teacher offers a more ‘open’ activity, with a
degree of control passed to the pupils, who work at a range of
levels depending on their current attainments. It is commonplace
(but not necessarily unproblematic) in language, art and drama,
for instance, to opt for differentiation by outcome; frequently
where children are asked to write a story the whole class is given
the same stimulus. The standard of the resulting written products
ranges widely. Equally widespread is the practice in maths of
(apparently) opting for a rigid differentiation by task; children
work on individual paths through maths schemes according to
their current attainments. (However, it is well-known that this is
in fact only an illusion of differentiation by task. Children can
reach advanced books in a scheme while having very little idea of
the mathematics involved, which means that tasks are not being
set them according to their current attainment. We cannot pursue
that point further here.)
If the constructivist applications in later chapters are
implemented, there will be a fairly dramatic change in
mathematics teaching styles, with much more differentiation by
outcome. There will be many occasions on which pupils take a
considerable degree of responsibility for the pace and level of their
own mathematical learning. This is not to imply that
differentiation by task in mathematics is ‘wrong’. It is rather to
claim that a one-sided diet of such differentiation is inappropriate.
Some will recall the example given in the Non-Statutory
Guidance in the first version of the National Curriculum, where a
closed task is instanced as 3×5=?, while the suggested
corresponding ‘open’ task is: ‘Make up some questions whose
answer is 15’. The first style exemplifies differentiation by task,
whereas the second, at least to some degree, permits
differentiation by outcome. It is easy to see how the second task
CONSTRUCTIVISM 17
requires and is likely to develop relational understanding, whereas

the first neither requires nor is particularly likely to develop such
understanding.
Clearly the demands made on the teacher where pupils are
following open tasks become more varied, challenging and subtle
than those envisaged in a transmission model. If only it were
possible simply to transmit to children their mathematics, to pour
the subject into their heads! Life would be much easier. At the
same time, the teacher’s task would be much less challenging and
exciting.
Constructivism: Other Points

From Piaget we also inherit the contention that children must be
active creators of their own mental structures; the more abstract
thought of which older children and adults are capable is
internalized action. In a hazy way this may seem to imply that
children should be ‘busy’ in practical ways in the classroom; that
they should constantly be doing maths with materials, and
preferably should be physically active at least some of the time.
Again, the version of constructivism defended in this book does
not share this contention. The criteria for being ‘active’ would be
difficult to explain, since the idea is inherently vague. Many of the
contexts for construction suggested in the book do involve ‘active’
pupils. But there is no reason why children should not at times be
sitting quietly listening to the teacher explaining something. The
crucial point is to note what should be going on ‘in their heads’ if
the teaching is effective. Pupils will not be taking on board ‘copies’
of something in the teacher’s possession. They will rather be
making links between what they already know and understand,
and the material being explained to them. Often they are forming
relevant connections when active, but if Piagetian theory implies
that they cannot do this when sitting still, then so much the worse
for Piagetian theory.
Another point about teaching styles which apparently stemmed
from perceived Piagetian orthodoxies: the idea of waiting until
children are ‘ready’, and then providing them with a stimulating
environment so that their mental structures more or less
spontaneously develop to the next ‘level’, is generally attributed to
Piaget. Regardless of whether such attribution is fair, our
constructivism certainly does not suggest any such ‘laissez-faire’
or ‘educational impresario’ approach by the teacher. In contrast,
we have many detailed thoughts to offer about direct teacher
interventions.
We make the assumption throughout this book that to

encourage interactive working and discussions of certain kinds is
likely to foster the growth of a greater number and range of
connections between mathematical elements than an unrelieved
diet of solitary study. The complex process of developing adequate
cognitive maps of the relevant mathematics can be greatly
enhanced through appropriate social interaction in which, of
course, language will play a key role.
Mathematical activities which are ‘social’ can reflect the social
aspects of mathematical meanings. In the ‘silly milkman’ scenario,
children in effect agree to play by given rules of counting and on
how to apply these rules, given particular messages left for the
milkman by the householders.
To Vygotsky we are indebted for the thought that children talking
with their teachers in meaningful practical situations can develop
or construct ‘new’ mathematical understanding which at that point
in their development would be impossible without the teacher.
This thought needs extending, however. Children interacting in the
presence of a skilled teacher can be enabled to develop their
mathematical thinking thinking : within their group in ways which
would be impossible without the teacher. It probably requires the
presence of the teacher, for instance, for new rules for errant
counting to be maintained for any length of time in the silly
milkman activity. Later chapters suggest many contres in which
such teacher supported group interactions might readily and
effectively take place.
Conclusion: Isn’t all this just Common Sense?

One reaction from even the sympathetic reader may be that all
this is just ‘too true to be good’. Everyone with any sense agrees
with it; there are simply enormous practical problems about
applying it in the classroom. Or, to look at it another way, perhaps
it is being applied now, since we allowed above that children
might even be quietly in their seats listening to the teacher and
still be playing roles as constructivist learners. Perhaps every
teacher is a constructivist, whether they would admit it or not. In
fact, it begins to look as if nothing could count as not being a
constructivist. Any imaginable teaching style can be seen as
manifesting constructivism! Constructivism is an empty theory
since it cannot be falsified.
In response, it has to be conceded that once you abandon the
exotic intellectual avenues, many of which currently attract the
‘constructivist’ label, you are certainly closer to common sense,
CONSTRUCTIVISM 19
valued by all primary teachers. And we are not advancing here a

constructivist theory of learning as a rival to other theories of
learning. Our constructivism is not an account of what we
discovered through experience and/or from the insights of
scientists about how and why children learn mathematics most
effectively. Perhaps ‘theory’ is not an appropriate word to use of
our constructivism at all. In our hands it chiefly concerns a fairly
mundane appreciation of what it is to know and understand
something in mathematics, or indeed more generally; it is the
insight that this appreciation clashes with the transmission model
of learning, still favoured by influential groups in our society.
There is a little more to it, however, than common sense. ‘Social
constructivism’ as an account of mathematics itself and as
characterized by Paul Ernest, represents something of a departure
from ‘common sense’. At least, this is so if the intuitive common
sense view of mathematics is that of Plato—as an abstract
indestructible structure which exists independently of human
activity. And it is the ‘social’ in ‘social constructivism’ which we
use to support our later emphasis on children working in groups
with the teacher, thinking explicitly about rules and procedures for
operating within mathematics.
Finally, by way of riposte to our imaginary objector here, there is
all the difference between a class of engaged learners listening to a
teacher, and a class of passive recipients in the presence of a
teacher who is convinced that transmission of mathematical
understanding is possible. This is obvious, even if superficially
each classroom event might be put into the same category of
teaching style.
3
Using Story and Drama to Develop
Mathematics
Andrew Davis, Peter Millward and Deirdre Pettitt
Introduction
Few familiar with young children can doubt the extraordinary
motivating power of two connected themes: story and ‘socio-
dramatic play’. School yards used to ring with the sound of ‘cops
and robbers’; now it is more likely to be ‘Thunderbirds’ or
‘Ghostbusters’. Once I lived next to a family whose children spent
much time in their garden. I think the parents had some religious
pretensions; at any rate over the hedge I frequently overheard rich
dialogue from the children involving angels and the devil in
addition to a glittering range of more earthly characters. These
‘games’ were characterized by a total and extended involvement of
the players. They happily negotiated their respective roles, and the
events which were to take place, switching in and out of role to
effect the planning. The same story sequence would be repeated
again and again.
While the most absorbing dramas come into existence when the
children themselves assume roles, similar processes may deploy
puppets or other people symbols. My two oldest children played a
game called ‘towns’, in which a whole metropolis would be created
from bricks, boxes, and so forth. A cast of residents had their own
cars and jobs. The game consisted of running through events in
the life of the community such as burglaries, traffic jams, crashes
and pregnancies. A toy representation of each character was not
always thought to be necessary; the children became actors in the
town as they chose. Solitary play can echo something of this; my
youngest at the age of three explored for herself ideas about an
afterlife by creating a ‘Duplo’ Hades, with a raised dais on which a
reclining toy female person was said to be ‘Mrs Jesus’.
Subsequent events were difficult to interpret, and their underlying
theology would probably not have met with Vatican approval.
USING STORY AND DRAMA TO DEVELOP MATHEMATICS 21
In the infant classroom, teachers, well aware of the power of

these processes, transform the ‘house corner’ into space rockets,
castles, jungles, forests, estate agents, recording studios, shops of
all kinds and hairdressers. ‘Dressing up’ clothes may figure as
additional stimuli, rather more frequently in nursery and
reception classes than elsewhere. Sand and water trays,
construction toys and dolls houses are thought to provide related
opportunities.
Despite this imaginative attention, in the majority of classes
these activities are regarded as extra, as something that ‘good’
children can choose when they have completed their proper work.
A corollary of this attitude is, of course, that the teacher herself
would very rarely plan to be present in the house corner or its
more exotic equivalent.
Is this because of problems in classroom organization? ‘What
will the others be doing while I am having this splendid time with
children in the house corner?’ the harassed teacher will inquire.
Certainly, the teacher often seems to be attempting the impossible
task of being in five different places at once.
Yet most ‘normal’ teachers in the 1990s plan, albeit for brief
periods, to engage with some of the children in their class rather
than with all of them at once. But it is very unlikely that they will
be ‘playing’ with the children in any sense. Much more probable is
that they will be hearing readers, helping with writing and
spelling, and assisting with aspects of basic paper and pencil
number work (Alexander, 1992).
We are confronted, then, with unmistakable current evidence
that teachers even at Key Stage 1 do not regard the engagement of
children in socio-dramatic play as having much of a priority
compared with the three Rs, or ‘covering’ the National
Curriculum, at least in the core subjects. Later in this chapter, we
discuss ways in which story and play might be harnessed to help
children build key elements in their understanding of
mathematics. The suggestions are quite impossible to implement
unless the teacher is prepared to spend some time with small
groups. Several ideas are very appropriately handled with the
whole class, but others are not. They will entail the teacher
spending continuous periods of at least five minutes with a small
group in the jungle, pirate ship, travel agents, or whatever, while
other children are working independently. There will always be
challenges in this situation so long as primary schools are
basically staffed on the ‘one adult in charge of thirty pupils’
principle.
Now some readers might be inclined to use ideas just as they

are presented here. With luck they might enjoy some short term
success. Unfortunately, with this narrow construal of the material
they would at best be in possession of a limited number of modest
points of departure, whereas they really need an indefinite supply
of fresh themes. At worst the chosen idea might well not work as
it stands with a particular set of children, and our whole approach
might be rejected for that reason.
In fact we hope for a very different reader response. Ideally
people will take from this book a set of principles, and will feel
empowered to develop their own activities with their own pupils in
the light of their particular school situation. We certainly aim
among other things to indicate a good range of starting points, but
these will need to be thought through, transformed and developed
by individual teachers to suit their own classes. The next two
sections in turn discuss story and socio-dramatic play in general
terms. We focus on specific classroom applications for each of
these in the remaining sections of the chapter.
Story
In chapter 2 we referred to the rich ‘cognitive map’ which is
required in order that children can make the connections
necessary to find their way around mathematics. Part of that
cognitive map can be explained if we consider what a large part of
thinking is sorted out in the mind by each person linking new
experiences to old by ‘storying’. That is, we take the new idea on
board and fit it into another situation or set of situations which we
remember. For example, driving for the first time in a fog, you
might tell yourself ‘My dad said that the first time he drove in a fog
he jolly nearly had a bad accident because he was going much
faster than he thought. The fog seems to distort your sense of
speed.’ Glancing at the speedometer confirms that this story was
correct and you slow down. As well as beginning to introduce the
notion of learning by storying, this example also indicates that the
actual experience—in this case driving in a fog—is often needed
before the ‘story’ is absorbed into knowing, in this case more about
driving sensibly.
Thinking by internal storying is not a new idea. It has a long
history and is generally accepted as being one way in which we
make sense of our experience. Sometimes the story occurs much
more quickly in the mind than the time it takes us to describe it. I
have lost my umbrella. In my mind a picture forms of where I saw
it last—hanging behind the door in my office and as I am at home
I shall get wet. At other times the strategy is deliberately employed.

A teacher, having lost an important letter, began to panic.
Calming herself after an extensive search of the classroom she
began to tell herself the story of the morning’s activities; a
narrative in temporal order. What had left the classroom in that
period? The answer was the register and the missing letter was
found.
These are short stories. Often they are more elaborate and as
Wells (1987) points out, they are the means by which, through
conversations, ‘each one of us is inducted into our culture and
comes to take on its beliefs and values as our own.’ Young
children, Wells (ibid) suggests, even before they begin to talk, build
up a picture of their world based on their experiences of it.
Storying, he suggests, in its beginnings ‘is not a conscious and
deliberate activity, but the way in which the mind itself acts.’
Later, it becomes more conscious as children learn how to share
the narrative form which is the basis of both childrens’ and
adults’ conversations. By the time children come to school most of
them, even if they speak little (to teachers) are adept at making
sense of the stories which they hear.
These stories, it must be emphasized, are not just stories from
books (although their value cannot be overestimated). Try
listening to almost any conversation and you will find it peppered
with narrative. Many meanings are shared between the
participants of a conversation otherwise communication would be
impossible. Where much experience is shared, stories become
elliptical to the point of being incomprehensible to outsiders. For
example, a family joke may only require one or two words (say
‘Aunt Eliza’) to conjure up the story shared about Aunt Eliza
which can illustrate exactly what the person naming her has in
mind. Where fewer experiences are shared—as in a classroom—
stories have to be more explicit. What is being suggested is that
teachers can capitalize on a fundamental way of making sense of
experience which is storying by quite deliberately using stories,
i.e. using narrative forms as a setting for teaching.
In suggesting that storying is a way of thinking and of sharing
meaning, however, we are not implying that psuedo stories should
be used when young children are taught mathematics. That is,
there seems little value in, for example, talking about ‘Mr Square
or Miss Circle.’ (This notion would run into mathematical
problems in any event as two-dimensional shapes cannot actually
do anything.) What is being suggested is that in conversation with
children, teachers should try to help children to apply their
experience to the mathematics they are learning through
narrative. Similarly, teachers can set up situations so this can

happen. An example given by Brissenden has a shopping context.
Simon: ‘I bought cheaper things.’
Takuto: ‘What is cheaper things?’
Simon: ‘It means less money, because if you have less money….
Suppose if somebody had one pound and if you had 50p
and you wanted to buy the same number of things you
just have to buy cheaper things.’
(Brissenden 1988)
In either case, talking with children or setting up situations, we
are referring back to chapter 2 and the need for children gradually
to acquire ownership of a complex network of concepts and facts.
The teacher’s role may include asking children questions but her
aim is that children shall ask them and try to provide their own
answers. To this end, a teacher can set up contexts where she and
the children become involved in stories which enable them to
think and apply experience to a concept or problem. These
contexts include the teacher deliberately planning stories about
the mathematics she wishes to teach.
The settings and content of such stories need not necessarily be
about anything other than a wholly imaginary situation. It can be
argued that experiences in school should, in so far as possible, be
real. That is, what is done in school should either deal with things
happening out there in the ‘real world’ or address ‘real’ problems
in school. In this argument estimating the number of chairs
needed for the concert has a value which does not exist in an
imaginary problem. Although we would not dispute the value of
this sort of experience we would argue that stories which are not
‘real’ in this sense are equally valuable and perhaps more
importantly are easily constructed. Moreover, it is false to suggest
that school itself is not real. All of life, including the life of the
mind, is each person’s reality. It is also a pity to see school and out
there in the ‘real world’ as separate or divorced from each other.
(See chapter 9 for more discussion of the ‘realistic mathematics’
issue.)
The sorts of stories which teachers can employ in teaching
mathematics will be described but first we must distinguish
between an imaginary problem of the sort found in text books and
those we mean. Textbooks do sometimes attempt to be user
friendly by setting up story situations. Various animals may
illuminate the text or the heading of a page states that there is a
sale so that every price given for the items illustrated must have
3p deducted from it. The point to make about textbooks and work
cards is that in the solitary situation of the printed page learning

can occur but may be less likely to do so than in the interpersonal
situations we suggest. We are not disputing the value of
commercial schemes and the like for necessary practice and
revision. However, if a scheme and only a scheme is used, it is
very hard for a teacher to know whether any learning which takes
place can actually be used and applied outside of the scheme. In
mathematics it may be necessary to redress the balance between
the solitary situation and social settings in favour of the latter.
This is not easy but in our view worth a serious attempt.
Drama
It is quite easy to treat dramatic presentations as copies of
everyday life. One of the common sense characteristics of
dramatic activity is its makebelieve quality, the sense that drama
is ‘only pretend’, that it is playful and unreal. The implication of
such a view is that drama in some way mirrors the world, that it is
a reflection of a world ‘out there’ which is real and abiding and
‘given’. Drama is meaningful and educationally valuable in that it
mirrors the world accurately and gives children the chance to play
at being what they are not. Their contributions are successful
when they are life-like and the measure of success is the degree to
which they can faithfully reproduce everyday experiences.
However, even when they are successful the outcome is not to be
taken too seriously (in the way that everyday living is serious and
‘real in its consequences’) and their work is easily dismissed as
‘only makebelieve’. Clearly, a teacher who sees drama in this light
is likely to encourage the children in their pretence by helping
them to copy the language and actions of those about them;
helping them, as it were to mimic the world. Anyone who has tried
this approach with young children is soon aware of the difficulties
they experience in trying to reproduce speech and actions in any
kind of life-like fashion. Their actions can be awkward and
mannered and their speech stilted and lifeless. They may act like
people in borrowed clothes and they present very vividly the
dangers of models of teaching and learning based on copying and
the transmission of knowledge.
Drama and Everyday Experience

Such a view, though, may mistake the nature of everyday life as
well as the opportunities provided by dramatic activities. The
everyday world is not just there to be experienced (or copied) but
is managed from moment to moment and sustained by the work

done by those involved to present to one another situations which
can be ‘shared in common’ and recognized as, for example,
shopping or arguing or teaching. People are put in place through
the manner in which they contribute to a social context and in the
way they are treated by others. Teachers and pupils are described
by their language and in their actions and by the way in which
they address and engage with one another. The content is
‘indexed’ in their talk and their talk is made meaningful within the
context they have managed to present and sustain. This ‘reflexive’
quality in everyday engagements brings out the active,
collaborative and negotiated aspect of human experience and
contrasts with a common sense view of the social life in which the
world exists around us (and will continue to exist after we die) and
in which the teacher’s task is to show the child the world (and the
way the world is) and to check the child’s knowledge against the
facts of life. If everyday life shares the managed quality of ‘lived
through’ drama and is not simply ‘given’, then it is possible to see
drama not as an imitation of life but as another aspect of the
never ending business of making life visible and meaningful. The
everyday and dramatic contexts are managed, both are
‘makebelieve’ and the interesting question is not how does drama
relate to everyday life, but how is it that we manage to indicate to
one another that we are presenting dramatic rather than everyday
experience. That is a question for another occasion, though. Here
is a small extract from a piece of drama in which young children
are working in the ‘living through’ dramatic mode; a teacher in
role is trying to find out what he will have to do in order to be
accepted as a member of a community living at the foot of a great
volcano. The children, as members of the community, are putting
him in the picture.
Teacher: ‘What would I have to do to be able to come and live
here?’
Shirley: ‘Believe in our god and do our ways.’
Julia: ‘Believe in our god and do our ways.’
Ian: ‘Climb the great mountain and if he doesn’t, he won’t be
one of our people.’
Mark: ‘Learn to live like we do.’
Teacher: ‘Is that what I have to do? Did all of you have to do that…
at one time…or do…don’t you have to do it?’
Mark: ‘Yes.’
Shirley: ‘We will when we get older.’
Teacher: ‘Mmm…you’ll have to climb the great mountain?’
All: ‘Yes…Mmm.’
Teacher: ‘And as long as you get down all right, you’re a member
of the group?’
All: ‘Yes…Mmm.’
Ian: ‘We…we’re true people ‘cause…’
Mark: ‘Yes…’
Ian: ‘Our…fathers and mothers were and if we go up now we’ll
probably be safe.’
Teacher: ‘I see…but me being a stranger…’
Ian: ‘Mmm…’
Teacher: ‘Would I have to do this?’
All: ‘Mmm…yes.’
Julia: ‘You’ll probably have…’
Teacher: ‘Well, I’ll have to give some thought to that because…’
Bev: ‘If you don’t, you’ve got to go…to go away to another
country.’
Teacher: ‘Well, I realize that so I’ll have to give…’
All: ‘Mmm…Yes…’
Teacher: ‘It a bit of thought.’
Julia: ‘Mmm…Yes.’
Teacher: ‘Before I decide whether to go or not.’
Some: ‘Yes.’
Shirley: ‘And then you’ll have to build your own house.’
Teacher: ‘All right.’
(Millward, 1988).
This is not a representation but a creation of life; it is new-minted
and those involved know no more about the way in which it might
develop than they would in a similar engagement in everyday life.
It shares few of the qualities of ‘putting on plays’ (there is no
audience, no director, no rehearsing, no learning of lines, no
plotting of moves), but it does have many of the qualities of
everyday life. It is spontaneous, generative, original and
purposeful, and the children and their teacher draw on the skills
they have developed through the management of countless
engagements in their lives. They are mindful of one another and
attentive to the developing context and they contribute in ways
that are appropriate and that will serve to elaborate and sustain
the context. Their interactions even contain the interruptions, the
inconsequentialities and the infelicities of everyday desultory talk
and it is quite clear that they are not putting on plays but living
through their drama. They are actively attentive to one another
and to the developing context of which they are a part, they are
engaged in their own learning and they are responsible for

generating and sustaining the contexts of their learning.
The Dramatic Presentation of Experience

The teacher who can encourage young children to engage in living
through’ (Bolton) type drama in the classroom (as well as in the
playground) may be rewarded with a very different kind of
teaching context. Involved in the drama and work in role, he or
she is likely to develop relationships with the children which give
them richer opportunities to take an active and interpretive part in
their own learning. An easily recognized feature of the rather sad
(and familiar) exchange from Andrew Davis’ school days is the
narrowly defined IRF formulation (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975)
in which all the rights are securely with the teacher, who initiates
the exchange and who evaluates the child’s response. All that the
child can do is respond and that response, even when correct, is
usually quite minimal. The emphasis is upon displaying
knowledge on the teacher’s terms, and the child is constrained to
act in a surreptitious manner (and risk being chastised) in order
to take some responsibility for the development of learning and
understanding. Producing exchanges like this as teachers and
pupils, is part of the management of teaching contexts and they
cannot be simply put aside by good intentions. It is easy to see,
for instance, how teaching of this kind reflects the transmission
model (in which the teacher has extra rights as a result of his or
her superior knowledge) but perhaps not quite so easy to
appreciate how difficult it can be to break out of engagements with
this quality and yet still be treated as a teacher. Teachers and
children can do in drama what they cannot do when engaged in
presenting the everyday reality of the classroom. In their drama
children can, as a matter of course, initiate exchanges, change
topics, interrupt and contradict. They can be experts upon whom
the teacher is dependent (and really dependent if he or she is
concerned that the drama should flourish) and they can walk
away from the drama whenever they want. As in everyday life, the
contributors to dramatic contexts must talk and act appropriately
as they are attentive to the context they are concerned to construct
and sustain. This puts very real constraints on the teacher, who is
likely to be even more concerned that the drama should flourish
than the children. When the teacher decides to work in role as,
say, the foolish milkman/milkmaid, or helpless stranger, and
when his or her concern is to sustain the identity of the foolish
milk seller, then extra rights are given to the children who,
through their expertise, hold a candle to the teacher/milkperson’s

folly and help us all to see the role for what it is.
Another lesson quickly learned by the teacher who encourages
young children to present life dramatically is that the dramatic
context is presented out of the children’s experience of living. The
teacher cannot make children present experience dramatically
(though they can be made to take part in a play) and they cannot
be told what to say and do (in the way that they might be directed
to behave for a school assembly). If the drama is to flourish, the
teacher has to contribute to a context which is part of the group
experience and within which each of the participants feels at
home and knows what counts as an appropriate contribution.
Dramatic engagements are sensitive to the children’s knowledge
and experience; they are attentive to their world. The children are
a part of the context of their own learning and are no longer
looking in from without or trailing along in the steps of their
teacher. It is from within contexts of this kind, dramatic or
everyday, that the children have the opportunity to use their
knowledge to realize their purposes. Furthermore, they know the
world differently in doing this.
Drama and Mathematical Knowledge

‘Living through’ drama is, like the presentation of everyday life,
part of the business of making the social world visible; part of the
business of making it meaningful. It gives those involved the
opportunity to treat one another in accordance with the
developing context and it means that they draw upon what they
know rather than what they do not know. These features should
help us to consider the value of drama in the development of
mathematical understanding.
One is entitled to ask, of course, how drama can be used to
develop mathematical understanding in young children but it
might be better to wonder how children’s mathematical knowledge
can be used to create dramatic contexts. The first concern of the
teacher must be to look after the drama, for there can be no
development of mathematical knowledge through drama if the
children are not contributing to, and living through, a rich
dramatic context. After all, there is little point in using the drama
to simply replicate examples taken from a mathematics scheme
(‘Will you be the person who…. Now who begins? What does she
say?’). Rather, the contributions which draw upon the
participants’ mathematical knowledge must serve and elaborate
the drama. The milkseller will look foolish as he or she is shown to
have an inadequate grasp of number, and the more successfully

the children can use their understanding of mathematics to
confound the outcome of the milkseller’s folly, then the more
foolish will he or she seem. The milkseller’s foolishness is
presented through the children’s wisdom, and the teacher has to
work within the context in order to bring out the children’s
expertise just as surely as they have to indicate the milkseller’s
folly in their contributions. Of course, the children are getting an
opportunity to make use of their knowledge of number, but it is
the way their knowledge of number illuminates the context that is
important. It is making their knowledge of number a feature of their
managed social experience. This knowledge is not just something
they use in their lives but it is also a part of their lives.
Before considering directly the way in which the children’s
knowledge of mathematics can be used to illuminate their drama,
it is worth noting that by encouraging children to present
experience dramatically, the teacher may be helping them to
appreciate the part they play in the construction of contexts which
they find meaningful and within which they feel at home. It
encourages them to take an active role in presenting, and making
sense of, their lives, and it seems likely that children who are used
to working like this may find it rather easier to engage in the kind
of mathematical thinking which Andrew Davis writes about. In the
same way, Gavin Bolton’s view of drama as a ‘problem solving’
activity (Dorothy Heathcote describes drama as a ‘man in a mess’)
seems to lead very easily into an approach to mathematics which
treats it as part of the way through which we manage to make
sense of our lives. It encourages children to make their lives
meaningful and not just look for meaning in the world about them.
A little later in this chapter we will consider a selection of ideas
for dramatic engagements which can be developed to provide
children with the opportunity to draw upon their mathematical
understanding. However, before we get too precise, it might be
helpful to consider three general approaches to drama which
teachers might like to consider when trying to encourage young
children to use their mathematical knowledge in the dramatic
presentation of experience.
Dramatic contexts based on mathematical

knowledge
It is possible to create dramatic situations in which the
participants’ mathematical knowledge is used to present the
overall meaning of the context. The silly milkseller is an example of
this. The milkperson may be pretty stupid in many ways, but it is

his or her mathematical foolishness which is presented here and
which drives the dramatic action. It is not all that has to be done,
of course, for the participants have to present the milkseller, show
what it means to want milk, cope with and present messages,
demonstrate their own expertise and so forth. Indeed, all aspects
of the situation are presented in the participants’ talk and in their
actions and they appreciate what is going on as they manage to
construct, and respond to, the dramatic context. After all, there is
nothing luring beyond what they say and do, beyond what is
recoverable from their contributions. We can keep on saying what
is happening but unless it happens here, before our eyes, and
unless it keeps happening and unless we talk about it and get a
sense of a ‘shared’ in common context, then all of our huffing and
puffing will count for nothing. The teacher is in the participants’
hands, and everything is up to those involved and the silly
milkperson will come alive in the light of their mathematical
contributions. It would be quite possible for them, of course, to go
on to present another dramatic engagement in which the
milkman’s foolishness comes of his inability to read properly or
his poor memory. It would also be possible to create a drama
about a doorstep milk thief in order to account for the strange
responses to the children’s requests for milk.
It is important to appreciate, as well, that at the heart of the
dramatic engagement a tension has to be developed between those
involved or between those involved and the context of their
involvement. In this case the tension is provided by the teacher
asking the children, through their roles in the drama, to overcome
the milkseller’s silliness and thereby get him to provide the right
number of bottles. The tension is presented in the relationship
between the children and the teacher in role as the silly
milkperson. Without this edge of tension the engagement would
look very like a bland copy of everyday life; it would not be
dramatic.
Mathematical knowledge applied to dramatic

contexts
Sometimes young children might draw upon their mathematical
knowledge in order to fulfil other demands in the drama. For
instance, a group of early years children were busy trying to
placate a very angry Tom Thumb who, through their teacher, was
sending them tiny notes of complaint about the way in which they
had (inadvertently) burned his house in their bonfire. They had
agreed to build him a new house and this meant drawing up plans
which met with his approval (very difficult to get) and at every
stage taking account of his size (‘about as big as your teacher’s
thumb’). All kinds of discussion and argument about the
suitability of available materials in meeting his requirements were
warranted and the children had to keep taking account of his size
in developing their ideas and getting his approval. Clearly, the
more they wrestled with the problems (and the more the teacher
made it manageably difficult for them to do so) the more Tom
Thumb and his predicament was made apparent. The children’s
mathematical knowledge may have been only one element of their
response to Tom Thumb’s predicament, but it clearly worked to
mark his stature and to indicate their expertise and to put them in
place as people who needed to make amends.
Sometimes the children might have to make use of their
mathematical knowledge to prepare for the drama and Paley
(1981) gives a nice example of a group of infant children spending
a lot of time building a proper physical context for their drama.
The drama involved a giant and a wizard, and it was very
important to the children that each house was represented by an
appropriate number of mats (more for the giant than for the
wizard.) Getting the houses right for the drama meant a lot for the
children and they were not prepared to proceed until this was
done to the satisfaction of all. Of course, the decisions they made
at this stage, based on their understanding of size, would affect
the drama throughout its course. In both of these examples the
children are getting the chance to make use of their mathematical
knowledge and to make it work in their world as they draw upon
what they know to meet their purposes. However, their
mathematical knowledge and the use they make of it is part of
their presentation of a dramatic context which is visible,
meaningful and shared in common. They can enjoy what they
have done with their knowledge, and they do so as Tom Thumb,
the wizards and the giants are brought to life.
Drama as a background to mathematical activities

It is also possible to use drama as a setting or background for
mathematical work with young children. Drama can provide a
purpose for mathematical activities and an incentive to complete
them. The children could be engaged in a quest to find a missing
prince, for example, or a box of dreams. All kinds of hazards could
be put in their way, and the children may be asked to negotiate
physical dangers (roaring cataracts, endless sands) and deal with
awkward people who dream up a host of different challenges and

tasks which they have to complete in order to proceed with their
quest. Some of these challenges and tasks could be of a
mathematical nature. Such an approach has the advantage of
allowing the teacher to choose the kind of mathematical work he or
she wants the children to do without the need to fold it directly
into some kind of dramatic context. It has disadvantages, though.
Clearly if the teacher tries to get too much out of these
mathematical tasks the link with the dramatic context (which, in
any case, is likely to be quite tenuous) will be broken and the
children will be left high and dry doing mathematical activities.
There is also the danger that the drama will be treated as a bit of
fun around the mathematics and both areas of experience are
likely to suffer for that. Finally, and most important of all, because
the mathematical activities do not directly elaborate the dramatic
context (and there is only the requirement that the children
should complete the tasks properly in order to proceed with the
quest) the dramatic activity cannot serve to help the children
make sense of their mathematical knowledge. They may as well be
back in the classroom, doing their sums. This may be the easiest
way to use drama, but it may also be the least rewarding for the
children and for the teacher interested in drama and mathematics.
If teachers are to use the children’s knowledge of mathematics
effectively in their drama and to make good use of drama in order
to develop children’s mathematical skills and understanding, they
have to be aware of the way drama works and the opportunities it
offers. They need to know what counts as an appropriate
contribution to a dramatic context and how to set up situations so
that children can make use of their mathematical knowledge.
So far in this chapter we have reflected on the power of drama
and ‘storying’ in general terms. How might young children’s
mathematical invention or construction develop when properly
informed by these ideas? Our answers begin with stories, for
teachers already will feel confident that they can ‘catch’ children
with these; start where you are, and extend by a series of
judicious steps. We then proceed to examine instances of
mathematically-tinged drama and dramatic play.
A Start to the Use of Stories in Mathematics

Teaching
Most teachers, very sensibly, have a repertoire of action games
and singing rhymes which introduce early mathematical skills
such as counting, addition and subtraction. A few examples will

suffice (bearing in mind that local variations are legion).
Counting:
One, two, three, four, five,

Once I caught a fish alive,
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Then I let him go again.
Why did you let him go?
Because he bit my finger so.
Which finger did he bite?
This little finger on the right.
Subtraction:
Five little ducks went out one day,

Over the hills and far away.
Mother duck went quack, quack, quack,
But only one little duck came back.
How many left, etc.
Addition:
One elephant was balancing,

Round and round on a piece of string.
He was having such enormous fun,
He asked another elephant to come.
How many now, etc.
These rhymes are invaluable and children love to do the actions

and take on the roles. But, perhaps they are not as valuable as
they might be if children know, as they sometimes do, the words
but not the concepts. Here the teacher can use an existing and
familiar story, i.e. she does not have to make it up, and elaborate
on it to explain the mathematics that is being learned or
practised.
For example:
Teacher. Let’s sing the song about the little ducks. Do you
remember what happens?
Children: They got lost. The mummy couldn’t find them…(etc.).
Teacher: Yes, but she knew how many she had to start with.
Children: Five.
Teacher: How did she know there were five?
Children: She counted them.

Teacher: But ducks aren’t very good at counting. How could we
help her to remember?
Children may suggest making number labels for the ducks, thus
introducing number recognition into the game. The ducks can be
called One, Two, etc. (Ducks are not very imaginative when it
comes to names for all those children.)
After the ducks have been selected and have chosen their
numbers:
Teacher: Mummy duck, can you put the little ducks in the right
order?
After this has been done:
Teacher: I know, lets play some tricks on the mummy duck. Shut
your eyes mummy duck. Now she’s not looking, one of
you hide. Now mix yourselves up. Mummy duck, open
your eyes. Can you tell which duck is missing?
(If the child sensibly says Fred, remind her that the ducks are
called One, Two, etc.)
You get the idea? The duck rhyme offers opportunities for many
extensions: changing the number of ducks, having two good ones
who come back together, thus altering the subtraction sum, having
a naughty one who loses his label and so on. The idea of a
naughty, silly or not-very-clever character is a ploy frequently
used in research which can be translated profitably to the
classroom. It is not me who is not-veryclever’ helps children to
chance their arms and puts them in the superior role in which
they are the expert for a change. Children do not have to be bored
by the duck game because there are so many action songs and
rhymes which can be extended in this way. Nor do you have to do
this all the time but as and when you think it would be
appropriate. Having got the idea children will often suggest their
own extensions and perhaps use the games in their play.
From this starting point you may venture into making up your
own stories. A teacher quoted in Maths Talk (The Mathematical
Association, 1987) whom many of us recognize as Zoe Evans from
Devon, tells how she makes up mathematical stories using soft
toys. With a group, she shows the children how the toys leave
their homes, go out visiting, quarrel and make up, all the time
introducing new groupings of numbers, simple addition and
subtraction as a story. Zoe Evans’ work is not limited to early
number or to number alone but permeates her first school. Some
of her stories and games are available commercially (see

references).
The rest of us may not be so skilled as storytellers but collecting
some props will be helpful. For example, the old-fashioned flannel
graph or similar props made from felt or card lend themselves to
stories, especially those about the language of length. Imagine a
story told with these aids which features a terribly tall thin
princess, a fat cat, a long thin dragon, a prince who is shorter
than the princess, three magic hoops: one tiny one, one larger
than that and one very big indeed.
‘Once upon a time, in a far away country, the king and queen
were very sad because their only child, Princess Augusta was
very very tall.’
(Show the King, queen and princess. Say ‘How do you know
she is very tall?’)
‘They were sad because they liked her as she was but she
needed a husband to help her rule the country after them
and some princes are not keen on tall wives. The princess got
fed up with these silly young men. She went into the palace
garden to talk to Herbert, her cat and Ponsonby, her pet
dragon.’ (Show these cut outs and discuss the fatness of
Herbert and the length and thinness of Ponsonby.)
‘Herbert was a magic cat. He gave the princess three gold
hoops. He told the princess if she stepped into the tiny hoop
she would shrink, into the big one and she would get taller
and the middle one would make her the same as she was
now.’ (By having two more models of the princess and some
sleight of hand these changes could be demonstrated and
discussed.)
‘The princess got on Ponsonby’s back and flew off, high into
the sky to seek a prince who she might like to marry.’
This is episode one. At each point the teacher brings the children
into the story, incorporates their ideas but emphasizes the
language of size and its comparative nature. This story could run
and run. However, it would be nice if the princess’ final choice
didn’t even notice how tall she was. Once an effort is made to
compose and tell the initial story the children themselves can play
with the characters and make up their own plots, hopefully
employing the mathematical language introduced.
Puppets can be used in stories in the same way. One teacher
borrowed her daughter’s knitted Snow White and the Seven
dwarfs, sewed numbers on the dwarfs and used them for number
stories to great effect. For example, naughty ones hid and had to
be identified or they got mixed up and had to get in line to make
sure each took their medicine. History does not record what her
daughter thought about this but teachers’ children are well used
to the appropriation of their property! The more serious point is
that telling stories about mathematics to young children needs
things that they can see and touch including, of course,
themselves as actors in the drama.
Drama and Dramatic Play: Mathematical

Examples
We now consider examples of the use of dramatic play for learning
mathematics. Pupils should make a personal contribution to the
development of the activities, having scope to choose their own
level of contribution, and some freedom as individuals to continue
to build up their mathematics on the basis of their current
knowledge. Contrast this with the requirement of a ‘transmitter’
who would want the pupils to slot into a prescribed sequence at a
prescribed level.
Such group work cannot be expected to be wholly successful if
occurring largely without the presence of adults. Children cannot
generate mathematical structures unaided. They require initiation
into mathematics already present within adult society.
Clearly the teacher will wish to foster specific areas of
mathematics; a key role will nevertheless be the creation with the
children of a story context…a set of characters with motives and
problems. As was seen above, often a tension will be induced,
which the children will be motivated to resolve. Where the teacher
is not interacting directly and continuously with the children, she
will still wish and need to intervene in the independent play which
may stem from scenarios she has initiated. Many children do not
‘play’ in these ways without considerable prompting. Moreover,
some are constrained in their imaginative explorations by media
images. These may be valuable in providing children with initial
scenarios and characters (or in many cases, caricatures) but
without intervention the media influence may fossilize dramatic
play into a restricted number of rigid patterns.
Working with a Group to Create a Story Context

The first scenario, described in some detail incorporates quite
unashamedly hackneyed elements; so long as the children have
sufficient ownership of subsequent developments no apologies
need to be made for this. In terms of the earlier classification, it

belongs to the second category—a dramatic context based on
mathematical knowledge.
Begin with a few pieces of equipment such as a cauldron, spoon
and wand. Ask children for some more suggestions. Establish the
character of a ‘bad-tempered magician’. Then you need to make a
crucial move; explain the bad temper in terms of a mathematical
deficiency. The magician (for instance) cannot say, read or write
numerals (presumably the victim of some tiresome spell…). This
presents the children immediately with a problem to solve, or a
context for invention.
But how does the teacher engage the attention of a lively group
of infants to do this? One obvious answer is to go immediately into
role; to pick up the wand and use a special voice, and to explain
her problem directly to the children. Children who do not readily
speak in a group can often make excellent use of puppets, which
may be used to project their personalities without incurring the
same social risks. There is no reason why a teacher who initially
feels less than confident about going into role should not try a
puppet as spokesperson; what is certain is that the children will
be very appreciative.
The magician has assistants; children might suggest ‘cats’. The
magician proceeds to explain that she has to earn her living
despite her deficiencies. Children again may contribute ideas
about how magicians earn their living; the teacher will need to
have included the thought that there are spells to be carried out,
and ingredients for these spells, which have to be counted
carefully or they will not work properly. All this might still be
possible with the teacher in role.
In discussion, and initial play with a group of children, ideas
about how the numerals are to be communicated can be explored.
Perhaps the magician points to items, and makes appropriate
numbers of sounds on a tambourine, xylophone, claps, waves her
wand, etc. If possible, the teacher will manoeuvre developments in
such a way that the importance of the assistants acknowledging
receipt of the messages is recognized. Perhaps the ‘cats’ must turn
round the same number of times before putting the right number
of frogs, etc. into the cauldron.
So the mathematical objectives attainable include the
development of simple counting and matching. Of course, given
different kinds of constraints on the magician, other mathematics
might be encouraged, and possibly at a more advanced level. The
teacher wishing to lead this drama can think carefully in advance
about such constraints, and the mathematics which seems most
likely to stem from them. With slightly older children, for example,
perhaps the magician can’t say numbers less than ten…and must
find other ways of expressing them. The children themselves, if
the activity is handled as recommended, will have a fair amount of
freedom to create alternative explanations of the magician’s bad
temper. Some of these will not be mathematical at all. It will be
hard to predict the mathematical terrain which might be traversed
in later developments. This does not matter, so long as the teacher
keeps a careful account of what has taken place, especially if she
is, for whatever reason, anxious about time and ‘getting through’
relevant National Curriculum programmes of study.
As indicated above in the context of developing rhymes and
stories, going into role and make believing some weakness or
stupidity, with the children cast as experts, is a ploy which many
teachers of young children include in their repertoire. Clearly it
should not be over used, but it can be a powerful tool for the
stimulation of mathematical thinking.
Note other potential in this scenario. Echoing the ‘silly milkman’
activity, we might have the magician’s cat who can’t count…and
always puts one more spell in the cauldron than is asked for. This
part of the story can be acted out, with the magician’s response.
Children can suggest other ways in which the cat might be silly,
and these too can be ‘played’.
With some children, the teacher might suggest that the
magician is clever enough actually to proceed on the assumption
that the cat will make a mistake. The children discuss and then
act out what the magician should say to anticipate the rule-
governed mistakes and complete the spells successfully. Hence,
when magician wants five worms in the cauldron, she asks for six,
etc.
We might abandon the ‘bad tempered’ character, and decide
instead that the magician is grossly overworked. Nevertheless, she
is very kind to her assistants, so they all wish to help her as much
as possible. For example, certain simple spells only require eight
items, which must be either slugs or spiders. (Children discuss,
and possibly make spell ingredients, such as snails, worms,
spiders, and the like.) They then make up ‘spell books’ containing
all the possible recipes. So, to infest your neighbour’s garden with
garden gnomes requires six snails and two slugs, or five snails
and three slugs, and so on. Perhaps there is a scene when the
books are presented to the magician…on her birthday? She might
try out the spells. Do they all work?
In another twist of events, the magician’s magic for increasing
and decreasing quantities is not efficacious, but her kind cats
want to help her maintain the fiction that it is. For a ‘doubling’
spell the magician puts four worms in the cauldron, and says her
spell. While she is asleep, the cats ensure that there are eight by
the time she comes back to check. Groups of pupils could suggest
other ‘changing’ spells that the magician might require of this
type, and again could act them out. Perhaps they do NOT always
get it right, but the magician’s arithmetic is excellent, various
complications might ensue, some of which have further
mathematical potential.
A scenario for Y2 and Y3s could involve the lost book of Animal
Spells. All the magician can remember is that it is some aspect of
the number of ingredients which is significant; spells made with
numbers with a given property transform victims into such and
such an animal. Perhaps numbers in the two-times table will
achieve transformation into a frog. A group of children might be
set to make decisions about these matters. They could revise their
knowledge of which numbers are in which ‘tables’ by colouring in
multiples on a 100 square. Twos, threes and fives could be
tackled, at least. Armed with this knowledge, and the patterned
100 squares available for consultation, the children decide on a
number property which is to be the key factor for a given spell.
(The degree of teacher intervention here will have to depend on the
capabilities of the children.) They then allow the magician (by this
stage a child is playing this role, we hope) to try out spells on
them, miming transformations appropriately, so that the magician
can try to rediscover her lost spell recipes. Children could discuss
what other number properties could be used for this kind of
game.
To mention other avenues very briefly…there might be currency
devised which can be spent in a special supermarket; ingredients
and spell books could be on sale; the ‘money’ could be used. There
would be the usual learning opportunities here, but also additional
areas because the children have been involved in inventing the
whole thing…including, for example, the relationship between one
coin and another. Perhaps one is worth three of another. The
shopkeeper may turn out to be a cheat. The children might decide
to create a magician bank. The magician takes cheques to the bank
and obtains currency. Perhaps a cash dispenser could be
simulated. Special cheque books and credit cards could be made
with further dramatic possibilities.
As was said earlier, there are dangers in spelling out
possibilities in this way. It also may seem to imply a degree of
teacher control which we are not ultimately advocating. Indeed,
because this book is about mathematics, the mathematical
elements have been highlighted. Yet the mathematics must not

dominate or control the dramatic/play possibilities or it may
crush them. We must bear in mind the general discussion of drama
earlier in the chapter. The mathematical construction or invention
will only be at its best if the activities achieve their own
momentum in the children’s terms. Even within a very closely
defined structure, the children can still be given appropriate
freedoms to interpret characters and develop the consequences of
events in such a way that involvement is maintained.
The teacher, then, might well be in role to introduce some of
these ideas. She need not dominate, however. Clearly the magician
has the most ‘important’ part in the above scenario. Later, for the
sake of generating momentum in the drama, it might be
appropriate for pupils in turn to take this job on, and ‘order’ the
teacher to carry out activities as assistant or whatever. A teacher
observing an activity of this kind largely in the hands of a group of
pupils, may then be able to assume the mantle of a subsidiary
character to encourage exploration and construction of a specific
set of mathematical concepts.
Further Ideas for Stories and Dramatic Play

Here are some other starting points for stories and dramatic play.
They are not elaborated in totally comprehensive detail. The hope
is that they will serve to spark the intended users into producing
their own ideas suitably tailored for the children with whom they
are familiar.
Gnomes
Gnome ideas are not original to us. Unable to credit the source,
we can only apologize and acknowledge our gratitude to the
anonymous donor(s). The gnome collection represents a different
genre from the socio-dramatic play of the magician. We have a
‘subcreation’ (Tolkien, 1964)…a fictional world, initiated by the
teacher, peopled by characters of a certain kind. Pupils, probably
older than those involved in the magician scenarios, invent further
details of this world through discussion and investigation.
Dramatic play is less likely, but there is plenty of ‘story making’
and in a whole range of senses, construction. Considerable
language work, both spoken and written, could well arise in
connection with such a project. The teacher provides the initial
definition of the situation, in which key features or constraints
provide the potential for mathematical problem solving.
Somehow set the scene for a community of ‘gnomes.’ What do

they look like? Could the children pretend to be them? There might
be a chief gnome. The gnomes arrive in a new country and decide
to set up a village. Gnome houses are to be made from four
multilink cubes. Gnomes insist that no one house is like another.
The houses are on plots which are large quadrilaterals, each of
which is different from all the others. This stage would be carefully
monitored and stimulated by the teacher, especially where the
terms ‘different’ and ‘same’ were discussed. The houses are
displayed together in the ‘gnome village’. How many gnomes can
live in the village, given their sensitivities about domestic
architecture?
The quadrilateral plot idea could be replaced by another.
Perhaps each house will have a lawn exactly twelve square units
in area. Each lawn must be a different shape. Children’s designs
could be recorded on squared paper. The gnome houses could be
placed on a very large grid. Details of houses, using grid
references, might be sent to the chief gnome planner. The cost of
painting houses could be raised. One face of a cube costs ten
pounds. Which is the most expensive house? Which the cheapest?
The local gnome authority may require plans of the houses…
different elevations, and so forth.
Do gnomes play football? If so, they require a pitch whose
dimensions are appropriately proportionate to their stature. Top
juniors with calculators and appropriate teacher assistance
should make some headway here.
Each gnome has a car. They like swapping cars, and do so at
the beginning of each week. But they don’t like doing the same
swap again more than is absolutely necessary. Only one pair of
gnomes can effect a swap in any one week. The gnome Mayor
convenes a committee to explore how many weeks will elapse
before they have to start repeating swaps. What happens with
different gnome populations? In further developments with older
juniors, the pupils may well be able to pose mathematical problems
for themselves arising from the gnome world.
Some more ‘contexts’ are now listed, and described more briefly.
We begin with situations particularly suitable for the younger age
range. Referring again to the earlier classification, these mainly
instance the idea of mathematical knowledge applied to dramatic
contexts.
Teddy Bear’s picnic

Preparing food, drinks for given numbers, setting places, etc.
Perhaps introduce the unwanted visitor. Relevant mathematical
ideas/terms will ill include ‘too many’, ‘not enough’, and so forth.
Or the character who is never there on time. There might be a
greedy bear who wants one more cake than the others. The
children will be counting, matching, exploring and practising
number relationships. The teacher’s role would be to join in the
play from time to time, establishing characters, counting routines,
etc. which the children will, in all probability, make their own and
try out when the teacher has moved on.
Master chef with assistants

He/she issues commands to fetch so many items, e.g. cooking
utensils, food, to stir so many times, to leave something on the ring
while they count up to so many. Perhaps provide containers half
full of such and such, or half spoonfuls. The house corner can
become the restaurant kitchen. The teacher’s role would be
judicious intervention in role, as before. Tension can be injected
with mathematical repercussions, if a sudden influx of guests is
postulated, a vital ingredient turns out to be past its ‘best before’
date, or a cake is to be made for a competition.
Bus/train/boat/space ship journey

So many chairs in rows act as bus seats. The maximum number of
standing passengers might be stipulated. Bus driver issues
tickets. Money might be used. There could be a sequence of
stopping points. Naughty passengers could insist on boarding
when there are already the statutory number standing. Perhaps
fares relate to the number of pick-up points. A passenger refuses
to pay, or has forgotten her purse. Teacher role as before.
Masters and robots

This exemplifies a dramatic context based on mathematical
knowledge. Children take roles as ‘masters’ (or any other non
gender-specific word suggesting someone who controls a robot!),
and as robots. The ‘master’ demonstrates an action, and then
indicates how many times the robot is to perform it. She might
indicate by saying a number, showing a number, showing a card
with spots, making that number of sounds or by some other
means. The robot picks up another card indicating that he has

understood the signal. So, for example, he is shown the numeral
4, and picks up a card marked with four spots, proceeding to take
four paces. As usual, we need an element to induce dramatic
momentum. Might the robot become rebellious? Perhaps the robot
has various kinds of malfunctions. These could be mathematically
systematic, in a fashion analogous to the silly milkperson of
chapter 2.
If the commands were extended to include directions about left
and right turns, then the activity could encourage thinking about
angle, direction and shape in addition to counting per se.
Clockwise and anticlockwise might be tackled. Probably the
teacher would introduce this activity with the whole class,
possibly in the hall. Opportunities might then be provided for the
children to play at this activity independently.
Cafe
Props…tables, chairs, plates, cutlery, menus, play dough food.
Children act as staff and as customers. Waiters share out, e.g.
sausages, for diners. Idea of fair shares, or so many each, or
‘grown ups’ getting more than ‘children’. Menus could include the
labelling of dishes with large numerals, Chinese restaurant style,
for recognition practice.
Bills could be created and paid for by customers. This again is
the standard ‘house corner’ play, with teacher intervention in role
to encourage the mathematical elements among others. Dramatic
possibilities with mathematical implications include incorrect bills
given to customers, inappropriate responses to orders, greedy
customers trying to gain more than they have paid for, etc.
Ghost
The teacher tells the story of a shy and lonely ghost who comes to
join an established spook community in the ‘castle’ set up in the
house corner. She has been frightened of the number three ever
since her sister ghost was bitten by the ghost of a fierce dog with a
large number three hanging from its collar. So messages have to be
exchanged with the ghost, involving numbers, without mentioning
three. The number after two…’, ‘before four…’, etc. Castle ‘doors’
might be set up round the classroom. Established ghosts have their
‘homes’ by these doors. The story line must develop the necessity
for communications with the new ghost. For instance, the ghost
who lives by door three invites the newcomer to tea, etc. Perhaps
an invitation is sent, bearing the dreaded number. Children could

be invited to speculate on the likely reaction of the new ghost, and
perhaps act this out. So they discover she is frightened of three,
and send a revamped invitation, which says: (Children discuss
what should be said.). Perhaps the party begins at three o’clock.
Possible developments: other numbers for various absurd reasons
which children might cook up could become taboo, and the
communications more complex in consequence!
This situation might be created by the teacher with the whole
class in discussion. It lends itself both to independent ‘play’ and to
the provision of opportunities over a period of several days for
children to talk together about possible plot development, with
regular reporting back to the whole class.
Toy cars and roads

Set up a typical floor activity with an assortment of toy cars,
perhaps a cloth road layout, bricks, traffic signs, toy people, etc.
The mathematics can include routes, right/left, clockwise/anti-
clockwise on roundabouts, traffic queues for ordinal number…my
lorry is the fourth.
Join in the game from time to time, making use of appropriate
number and spatial language, and encourage the same in the
children. The joining in should be genuine, rather than a series of
questions such as ‘What colour is the fourth lorry?’ and the like. A
dramatic element, as usual, is most likely to result in ‘successful’
games. Encourage the development of characters, with problems of
some kind, and the playing through of a plot which involves,
among other things, travelling from one place to another on the
‘board’.
More Demanding Activities: Y2 Upwards
Robbers and sleeping villagers

Initial story: Villagers are all misers and keep trays of gold coins
under their beds. Robbers creep in at night and try to steal
treasure. They must not take too much, for the trays are magic and
scream if the number of coins falls below a certain level. (Or if the
number left is an odd number, a prime number, etc. As always, the
appropriate number properties will depend on the attainment
levels of the pupils concerned.)
Groups of two or three Villagers’ must plan secretly what the

rule will be. This might have to be done in class as part of the
preparation for the drama, and checked through with the teacher.
Evidently the ‘coins’ will have to be made in advance; plastic
money is not very exciting in this context. During the dramatic
play in which the burglaries are enacted, villagers must apply the
rule and provide the ‘scream’ from the tray when appropriate. This
will presumably involve them in pretending to be asleep, but
watching the robber burgling their tray and noting how much is
being taken. The trays could be designed on a large-scale and take
the form of ten by ten grids marked from 1 to 100. This would
allow both robbers and villagers to keep careful track of what was
going on.
The robbers will try to steal as much money as possible without
getting caught. They must also note the rule being applied, so that
they can do better next time. They may take several burglaries to
discover the rule. Perhaps there could be a convention that
robbers who are ‘caught’ four times must stop burgling. Robbers
might need to work cooperatively, pooling knowledge gained from
previous crimes, ultimately enlisting one burglar to go for the
mother of all crimes, agreeing on some way of sharing the
proceeds.
To begin this activity, the teacher tells part of the ‘story’, invites
contributions from pupils to develop it further, and organizes and
initiates group planning to facilitate playing through the ‘drama’
which eventually takes place with the whole class in the hall.
Suitable props might be used, as usual.
Estate agent
Transform a corner of the classroom into a branch of an estate
agent. This will involve large numbers for house prices.
Accordingly, some initial discussion of large numbers and how
they are written and spoken would be appropriate. The activity
itself involves further practice along these lines. Children could
make ‘plans’ of rooms in houses. They could construct a simple
database of available houses; this could be entered on the
computer. ‘Searches’ could be carried out for customers. Perhaps
the houses could be made from card or construction kits. Entering
and accessing information on a database figures in Attainment
Target 5 of the National Curriculum.
The ‘auction’
Children are first introduced to the idea. Decide on what is being
sold to fit in with the topic, perhaps furniture, houses, jewellery.
Children could be given ‘cheque books’. The teacher might have to
play the auctioneer initially, to give pupils the idea. Pupils could
then take over. Further complications could include pupils
becoming ‘buyers’ with a fixed amount of money with which they
must try to make maximum purchases.
4
Teachers Constructing Mathematics
Brian Woodhouse
Introduction
Given that resources for the professional development of teachers
are becoming increasingly scarce as LEA INSET provision wanes
and funding is channelled through local management of schools
(LMS), less expensive, more efficient and accountable methods are
being sought to help and support teachers, often through school-
centred or schoolfocused activity. The improvement of teachers’
subject knowledge is widely acknowledged as of central
importance, if primary schools are to make the progress
demanded with teaching the National Curriculum (OFSTED,
1993). Additionally, there is a need for schools to provide more
consistent quality teaching and learning models for student
teachers to witness as more training is transferred to classrooms.
A constructivist view of the teaching and learning of
mathematics would suggest that such INSET would embrace, as a
fundamental tenet, teachers, both individually and with
colleagues, constructing or reconstructing their subject
knowledge, building on prior understanding in ways unique to
them, thereby being better prepared to help children do the same.
An over-reliance on commercial scheme materials and/or
textbooks would then be avoided as teachers and pupils become
more mathematically empowered through an interactive
exploratory approach to the subject. Those primary school
teachers who lack confidence in their mathematical ability or
perceive mathematics in terms of remembering and using
prescribed rules and procedures, should benefit from a
development model based on mutual sharing and the support of
colleagues, which encourages teachers to work in an effective
learning environment, promoting experimentation, questioning,
reflection, discovery, creativity and discussion. Learning
mathematics can then be presented as an involvement in process,
TEACHERS CONSTRUCTING MATHEMATICS 49
an interpretation and performance of emergent facts, concepts

and procedures rather than the traditional mastery of a body of
delivered knowledge. Consequently teachers can then be released
from mathematical content as a first focus of their concern.
Discussion of an Example
To exemplify some of these considerations, an exercise offered to a
number of in-service courses for primary teachers is described. A
single sheet of A4 paper and a pair of scissors are given to each
participant who is then merely invited to cut the paper. When no
further clarification is given but everyone is encouraged to
proceed, the results and indeed attitudes are interesting to
observe. The ensuing cuts can be variously described as: tentative
—a short anxious snip usually symmetrically placed along and at
right angles to one of the sides; flamboyant—raking thrusts
creating ribbons of paper; inventive—studied cuts creating
intricate patterns; perverse—a dismissive cut chopping a
minuscule triangle from one corner; the list could go on. A
suitable vocabulary to describe the results is then sought and
what emerges is a series of variables as the differences and
samenesses of the results are considered. The number, type
(curved, straight, multi-staged), length, location and angle of cuts
are identified as operative variables while the original shape of the
paper, folding or not before cutting and even whether to use
scissors or not are examples of values of context variables.
What does this introductory and at first sight trivial activity
achieve? The participants have been placed in a situation where
there is a choice of action, a decision to be made and subsequent
analysis to be conducted of the types of possible choices available.
All contributions are equally valid and discussion and
communication are promoted. Minds are now better prepared to
explore new approaches and a first step has been taken in
initiating mathematical activity not just imitating the mathematics
of others.
Returning to the exercise, it is quickly realized that there is no
(mathematical) interest in allowing all the variables to be in play
at the same time. The application of constraints (presetting the
value of some of the variables) defines a number of problems of
differing appeal and levels of difficulty.
One such activity is to consider a single straight cut through the
paper and identify the polygons so formed. The operative variables
are the location and angle of cut. A classification of the polygon
Figure 4.1
Figure 4.2
pairs is then undertaken (Figure 4.1) and certain special cases,

using additional constraints, are examined (Figure 4.2).
It is appreciated from the analysis that there can be an infinite
number of different cuts producing polygon pairs which lie within
a single class. For example, in Figure 4.3, all cuts from A except
AC produce a trapezium and a right-angled triangle. There is a
dynamic dimension in play here. The trapezia and triangles
formed from cuts intersecting the sides BC and CD have different
orientations.
Figure 4.3
These non-static positions contrast with those normally seen in

textbooks or on the blackboard. Gattegno (1958) saw the value of
freeing minds’ from the ‘conditions put by the restricted field
presented.’ The activity is in fact similar to his rectangular
geoboard usage but offers a different embodiment, i.e. a variation
in both the mathematics and the material. This accords with the
Perceptual Variability Principle (Dienes, I960) whereby the same
conceptual structure is presented in the form of a number of
‘perceptual equivalents’ to allow scope for variations in concept
formation for the individual learner.
Figure 4.4
A powerful idea emerging from the exercise is that of exhaustion.

Given the constraints, can all the different polygon pairs be found
within the defined classification? This question demands a
systematic attack on the problem to ensure that all five classes
emerge. One successful strategy is to start at an arbitrary point on
the perimeter of the rectangle and see what happens when the
angle of cut is varied. By moving this point along the perimeter
and choosing ‘representative’ positions, in each case examining
the effect of changing the angle of cut, an exhaustive strategy is
guaranteed. In other problems involving exhaustion, e.g. when
investigating all possible ways of filling a threesectioned ice-cream
cornet, given say four available flavours, an elementary knowledge

of combinatorics can be useful and indeed offer an opportunity for
a first exploration of simple permutations and combinations.
After investigating simple decompositions of a rectangle, the
situation can now be reversed to initiate a second exercise in that
by recombining the polygon pairs, equal side against equal side,
figures other than the original rectangle can be produced. An
example is shown in Figure 4.4.
Again, discussion of possible constraints prompts questions
such as whether it is permissible to flip over one of the shapes
before recombination and if the parts must be coplanar (lying in
the same plane). If ‘flip-overs’ are allowed, and coplanarity
demanded, some interesting combinations emerge. A worthwhile
pre-activity is to try to anticipate the recomposed shape. Three
figures in addition to those shown in Figure 4.4 can be made
(Figures 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7).
Figure 4.5
Figure 4.6
Figure 4.7
The recombinations deserve individual study:

Figure 4.4 reveals similar triangles and a special case of the

midpoint theorem. (The straight line joining the midpoints of two
sides of a triangle is parallel to and one half of the third side.)
Figure 4.4 also offers a parallelogram and brings to mind a
general method of finding the area of any such shape.
Figure 4.5 is an isosceles trapezium and,
Figure 4.6 is an example of a concave pentagon
Figure 4.7 is an unusual convex pentagon in that it contains
three right angles.
All the transformations are examples of area conservation, the
area of each shape being equal to that of the parent rectangle. The
six figures exhaust all possible cases under the given constraints.
The idea can now be extended to each of the five classes from the
first exercise and to special cases in which pairs of equal sides are
deliberately created (Figure 4.8).
Figure 4.8
This example offers an interesting contrast to the cut proposed in

figure 4.4. Again, six reconstructed polygons are possible
(including the parent rectangle): a convex pentagon with three
right-angles, a parallelogram and an isosceles trapezium as
before, but a quadrilateral with two right angles (a surprise?) and
a second convex pentagon, this time with two right-angles.
Having looked at two examples, each of which produced six
different recombinations; it is interesting to pose the question
which cuts would produce the maximum and minimum numbers
of different recombined figures. This last is shown in Figure 4.9
Figure 4.9
Note that in this case there is only one recomposition—the

original rectangle.
Arising from an initial single cut of the paper, several quite
different mathematical routes can be taken by considering other
values of the variables and different sets of constraints. A
selection, initiated by non-specialist teachers attending in-service
courses, are listed below:
(a) Symmetries (reflective and rotational). When work of this type

was introduced to children at Key Stage 1, multiple sets of
shapes were pre-cut and made up in stiff card. Early learners,
including reception class children, were able to appreciate an
impressive range of properties of plane figures through
decomposition and recomposition activity.
(b) Angle properties, an interesting example of which is an
exploration of right-angles in figures. A series of challenges for
a Y6 class constructing various polygons with given numbers
of right-angles arose from this activity.
Figure 4.10: A convex pentagon with three right-angles
(Can the figure be constructed with none of the sides equal?)

Even the simple task of constructing a quadrilateral with
four right-angles produces lively discussion regarding
rectangles, squares, diamonds and areas and ratios of linear
measures of similar figures.
(c) Different starting points, e.g. parent figures other than
rectangles.
(d) Tessellations using shapes arising from a curved line cut
across the rectangle.
(e) A single fold to produce a silhouette (an overhead projector is

useful for this exercise) and the classification of silhouettes
arising from different folds.
Figure 4.11
Here, the fold is along the diagonal of the rectangle. The

resulting figure is a concave pentagon with two right-angles
and reflective symmetry.
(f) Folding the paper before making a single cut under selective
constraints.
Figure 4.12
Two figures are formed: a scalene triangle on which the original

fold is an angular bisector and a concave heptagon with five
right-angles. This exercise provides many surprises,
particularly if attempts are made to predict the results before
cutting and unfolding.
(g) Multiple folding before making the single cut. Special cases of
this activity give familiar repeating patterns.
(h) Single folds to produce given fractions of a rectangle.
In this example, both the length and width of the rectangle

are trisected and a single fold made as shown. The area of the
heavily scored concave hexagon AEGFCD is 7/9 of the original
rectangle. [ (1–(2×1/9)]. Additionally, the folded triangle EFG
becomes 1/8 of the area of the convex pentagon AEFCD.
Figure 4.13
Similarly, using a 4×4 partition (16 units of area) and

reflecting a corner of area 1½ units of area, the area of the
resultant concave hexagon is 13/16 of the original rectangle
and the triangle is 3/29 of the convex pentagon.
An examination of the mathematics potentially emerging from

these exercises indicates unexpected coverage of the plane
geometry (excepting the circle) included in the programme of study
for Key Stages 1 and 2. Given the starting point—a single cut in a
sheet of A4 paper—teachers look back over their work and its
progression and are usually surprised by the powers of creativity
and understanding they have displayed and the opportunity they
have taken to reconstruct their own knowledge of two-dimensional
geometry. Their knowledge of the subject may be somewhat
patchy but the impact of these practical exercises can allow the
new experience to interact with the old and, as new insights are
discerned, provide an impetus for further study.
The series of activities prove accessible to everyone at the start,
allow challenge and extensibility, invite decision making and
involve speculation, hypothesis making and testing, definition,
reflection and interpretation. These characteristics echo the
ingredients considered as necessary for a ‘rich mathematical
activity’ cited in the curriculum development study Better
Mathematics (Ahmed, 1987).
Recasting Standard Objectives

The above analysis spawns a number of mathematical
opportunities within different subject areas of shape and space
(symmetry, angles, tessellations, polygons, fractions) from a
simple starting point. The same techniques can be used to develop
rich classroom activities to meet specific mathematical objectives,
for example as defined by statements of attainment in the
National Curriculum. A possible initial procedure is to take an

approach, currently used by a teacher to meet a named objective,
often a teacher-led set of activities or a section of a commercially
published scheme, and recast the work in a more exploratory mode.
Consider, for example, the objective ‘knowing and using addition
and subtraction facts up to 10’. A traditional activity to support this
is to partition sets of objects in different ways and then record the
results in the form of simple number sentences. A discussion of
context will furnish various possibilities: real objects, pictures,
structural apparatus, coins, measures, in fact typical settings
offered by published schemes. What can be changed in the format
number sentence itself?
Clearly, the numbers in the frames, the number of stages, the
operation(s), the number of sentences and their possible
interaction can all be regarded as operative variables. Constraints
would include:
(i) A restricted set of number from which to choose, e.g. even or

odd numbers only, one even number and one odd number,
one number repeated.
(ii) A given result, e.g.
(iii) A given starting point, e.g.
(iv) Given numbers in a multi-stage sentence, e.g.
(v) Mixed operations, e.g.
(vi) Interacting or comparable sentences, e.g.
To exploit these dynamic situations, frame boards can be

constructed with number and operation cards used in accordance
Figure 4.14
Figure 4.15: Frame boards
with constraints decided by the teacher or the child. Examples of

this which involve combinations of constraints are (a) and (b)
shown in Figure 4.15.
Attempts can be made in most of the above cases to find all
possible sentences for the given set of constraints. Although the
permissible set contains numbers less than 10, a remarkable
range of difficulty levels emerges.
There is of course no need to define a context and the work can

be developed under the heading of investigating within
mathematics itself.
Conclusion
In trialling some of these ideas in school, teachers have
commented that they themselves must reappraise their own and
children’s mathematics through their interactions with children,
just as children in their turn interactively construct their
knowledge. This would appear to support a view of school
mathematics based on the principles of constructivism (Steffe and
Wiegel, 1992). This reappraisal is sometimes uncomfortable as it
may require deconstruction of some of the ‘mathematical baggage’
that all teachers take into their classrooms. A reconsideration of
what is thought to be known and understood can create
uncertainty and unpredictability in situations previously felt to be
controlled. Some strongly believed procedures and concept
structures may need to be abandoned or modified and rebuilding
attempted. There is some evidence to suggest that this happens to
teachers from a wide range of mathematical experience, not just to
those with the least mathematical preparation (Goldin, 1990).
In this brief chapter, a view is offered of INSET experience, the
orientation of which is process rather than content together with
the structuring and sequencing of the learning environment, and
which is based on a constructivist appreciation of both the
teacher and the pupil as learners.
A few strategies are presented, arguably simple but important,
which encourage a focus on how learners can make sense of their
mathematics and how these understandings shape the learner’s
mathematics behaviour (Schoenfeld, 1988). Although a
considerable amount of investigative styled material is available to
primary school teachers, little work appears to have been done in
analyzing either the processes involved in mathematics learning
associated with ‘investigations’ or the particulars of efficient
related teaching strategies. It may now be profitable to search for
further strategies which could assist teachers to construct their
own mathematics as opposed to being merely consumers and
imitators of the subject. In this regard, the processes of oral
and written communications of such constructed mathematics to
peers may be worth examination. It may also be worthwhile
revisiting ‘the modern heuristic’ (a study of the process of solving
problems especially the mental operations typically useful in this
process) (Polya, 1945) and attempt to translate the reasoning

where appropriate for primary school learners.
Whatever strategies and skills emerge, however, teachers must
be given the opportunity to experience each particular strategy in
different contexts and to practise associated skills.
5
Pattern in Constructing
Mathematics
Maria Goulding
Mathematics may be said to deal with the basic patterns that

human beings find in, or impose upon, their environments…
the way that [they] think about, communicate about, or learn
to deal with these basic patterns (Davis, R.B., 1984).
The emphasis here upon human activity and communication fits

in well with a general view of learning in which an active learner
makes sense of daily experience in and out of school. Very young
children bring to the school environment knowledge about the
patterns that are taken for granted in their everyday lives. This is
not just about decorations and naturally occurring forms, but
about the underlying features of regularity and repetition which
characterize events in the day, occur in stories or rhymes or songs,
routines at home or school and so on. Using this knowledge
children look for patterns and test predictions by observing and
acting within a social situation.
In all their learning they will also need to adapt what they know
in the light of new experiences, and some of the actions which
they have used reliably in the past may be found wanting, even
misleading, in seemingly similar situations. For instance, the child
who has used sellotape to stick together paper models will be
disappointed when using the same method to join up a model of
wooden blocks. Sometimes it is patterns of social behaviour which
are misread, as when an articulate child cannot understand the
pained silence which follows her announcement that the man
sitting opposite on the train is very fat. This process of adaptation
is common in constructivist theory (von Glasersfeld, 1987).
In the more formal situation in school, the search for
similarities, differences, repetition and regularity is common to
many areas of learning but there are particular ways in which
pattern is central to mathematics. In the following two
mathematical examples, some of these ways are illustrated.
Example 1
In Figure 5.1 there are four numbers written in three different
scripts. Can you identify them?
Figure 5.1: Other number scripts
Different number scripts such as these may well be familiar to

the pupils themselves and are beautiful examples of mathematics
as a human product. The way certain symbols have developed
clearly relates to the number represented, e.g. the Urdu symbols
for 2 and 3, and the whole system has evolved as an efficient tool
for communicating information about quantities, in response to
the activity of trade.
In trying to solve the puzzle the reader may have:
(i) grouped the scripts together on visual similarity,

(ii) looked for patterns in the formation of the numbers,
(iii) used the relationships between the values of the numbers
by referring back to the known script.
Reasoning from these clues she may be able to identify the four
numbers in the three different scripts. In doing so, she may also
have been aware that the Chinese script differs fundamentally
from the other two with its use of a separate symbol for 10, and
with the vertical rather than horizontal arrangement of symbols.
Despite these differences in culturally agreed systems of number,
it is possible for someone who knows only one of the scripts to
decipher the puzzle. The fact that representing counting numbers
is an activity common to many groups partly accounts for this,
but also significant is the recognition of reasonable patterns in the
codes. Knowing one set of symbols helps us to recognize similar
patterns in unfamiliar scripts.
PATTERN IN CONSTRUCTING MATHEMATICS 63
Example 2
The second problem may also illustrate how common ground can
be achieved, in this case despite different ways of seeing a
mathematical problem.
In Figure 5.2 the first three in a sequence of matchstick models
are given. How many matchsticks would you need to build the
100th model?
Figure 5.2: Matchstick sequence
One person may notice that each time a new square is drawn
three more matches are added. The sequence of matches 4, 7, 10,
13, 16…may be continued until the 100th number is reached.
Another may say that in the 100th model there are 100 squares.
Each square uses 4 matches giving 400 matches. Of the 101
vertical matches, 99 are repeated twice in the count. So the
number of matches is 400–99=301.
Yet another person may say that the first square counts for 4
matches and that all the others count for three, so in 100 squares
there will be one counting for 4 and 99 counting for three.
So that gives 4+3×99=301.
These are only some of the possibilities. If any of the
explanations are difficult to follow this may give the reader some
idea of the difficulties which children experience in understanding
the teacher’s methods for solving problems.
The first of the three methods is laborious but if done correctly
will give the right number of matches. It is probably less time
consuming than drawing the 100 squares and counting the
matches. The second two methods rely on finding a general way of
looking at any shape in the sequence and finding a relationship
between the structure and the number of matches, which could be
applied to any of the models. Such methods are of wider
application than the first but involve more sophisticated thinking,
and some people may prefer to stick to the sequential method if
they are more comfortable with it. This is a very common
phenomenon which teachers will recognize as problematic, e.g.
when children continue to add up using their fingers, when they
fall back upon repeated addition instead of multiplication.
This is not to deny the value of pupils’ personal methods of
working which are often inventive and surprisingly sophisticated.
In the research on pupils’ ‘own’ methods for doing written

calculations (e.g. Thompson, 1993) it has often emerged that not
only were these methods successful for the pupils but that they
revealed a great deal more about their thinking and
understanding than standard methods. Sometimes, however, the
teacher may want to present alternatives, or better still, share
methods which pupils have come up with themselves amongst the
group. I shall return to this later.
In both of these examples patterns and relationships have been
involved in two principal ways:
(a) when the objects studied exhibit patterns—the patterns

formed by the matchsticks, the repetitions involved in the
number symbols.
(b) When the search for patterns and links is a strategy used to
solve a particular problem.
If we think of the patterns involved in multiplication squares,

tiling, statistical surveys, games of chance over a long run, and
tessellations, to give but a few examples, then it is clear that
pattern in the first sense is found in many branches of
mathematics. Used in the second sense, as a mathematical
process, we could find many instances particularly in investigative
work. In the next section, where childrens’ work is considered, it
is this aspect of pattern which is the focus.
Children Using Pattern in Doing Problems

When children encounter mathematical problems, there are
several ways in which they may proceed. If the teacher has
initiated the problem she may do a similar problem with them
first and then expect the pupils to imitate the strategies that have
been worked out already. This is a common way to proceed, and
providing there is a degree of challenge in moving from the
original problem to the new one then the pupils may be offered
some degree of autonomy. If the new problems are simply
variations on the original, with a few minor changes, and the
teachers’ method is clearly the expected approach then there is
very little room for pupils to build upon their present
understandings, develop new ones or make choices about
strategies. Many of us try to strike this delicate balance between
supporting pupils and offering challenges which means we are
constantly using our judgment in interacting with pupils.
Although mathematical problems are many and various, a

common feature is that present knowledge and skills are used
within the often unfamiliar problem situation. This context may be
‘real life’ or purely mathematical: the teacher or the pupil may
have posed the problem; during the solution pupils may need to
learn new skills; new problems may present themselves during the
solution. In many problems pupils will be trying to recognize
parallels with previous experiences or trying to recognize patterns
which will give clues as to which avenues to pursue. In the three
situations which follow, children are working in this way.
(1) In this extract, (Goulding, 1993 also discusses this material)
a tenyear-old pupil wanted to find out how to play music on the
Roamer, a turtle like toy, programmable from a touch sensitive
panel. This was a genuine problem for the pupil, who was
branching out from using LOGO-like instructions to make the toy
move. The teacher could have given this information:
The instruction has to be followed by two numbers.
The first number tells the Roamer how long to make the note.
The first number can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8.
1 is the shortest, 8 is the longest note.
The second number tells the Roamer how high or low to make the
note.
The second number can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 or
13
1 is the lowest, 13 is the highest.
She could have demonstrated these rules along the way since the
amount of information is too much to take in all at once. However,
she decided to adopt a different approach and this is a
reconstruction of the interchange taken from notes.
Teacher: ‘What have you found out?’
Alison: ‘You need two numbers. You can’t use 9 first
(demonstrates), but you can use it second. The first
number has to be less than the second.’
(She keys in )
No, that works.
Teacher: ‘Can you make a tune?’
Alison: (She keys in
‘It’s awful’ (tries to sing the tune).

Teacher: ‘What do you notice about the notes?’
Alison (Plays it again twice)
‘High or low. How long.
For a high note, try a high number.’

(She tries
‘See, it’s high.’
(She tries
For a low note…
(She tries
‘…See’
(She tries
‘The first is longer, it’s also higher.
If you put in big numbers it’s higher and longer.
If you put in smaller numbers its shorter and deeper.’
Teacher: ‘You’ve tried two large numbers together. What happens
when you try a large and a small?’
Alison: (She tries
‘It’s high and short. The 1 makes it short, the 9 makes it
high.’
(She tries
‘That’s a little longer, and a bit lower.’
(She tries
‘That’s longer and higher.’
Teacher: ‘What about keeping one number the same?’
Alison: ‘What like?’
Teacher: ‘Keep the first number 1.’
Alison: (She tries
and listens to the sequence three times).

‘It went down deeper and they’re all short.’
Teacher: ‘Can you get a run of notes all going up?’
Alison: (She tries
and listens to the sequence several times).

Then she tries a tune:
Although she has not experimented with the lengths of the notes
she does seem to have cracked the idea that the two numbers
have separate functions and this is confirmed when she creates a

new tune:
It needs to be stressed that this is not meant to be a model

intervention. It is noticeable, for instance, that Alison continues to
use 1 for the note length after the teacher’s suggestion. The reader
may have said different things at that point, or she may have told
Alison to go off and explore some more. More likely she would
have been interrupted by other pupils in the class. There are,
however, some useful features which may be worth considering.
First of all the pupil was coming to a new use for the Roamer and
her previous knowledge could have been misleading.
When programming the Roamer to move: ↑ takes one input
which can have more than one digit, e.g. ↑2, ↑26, ↑100 and the
same is true of the curved arrow left or right instructions. Alison
has obviously noticed something different at the beginning of the
dialogue, as she has already found the restriction on the first input
and the fact that two inputs are needed. She does not appear to
have found out that the two inputs have different functions but
rather than pointing this out straightaway the teacher has helped
Alison to tease this out herself.
Alison’s responses are also noteworthy. Her initial input is, with
two exceptions, a series of pairs of consecutive numbers which
may indicate a systematic approach to the investigation. She then
proceeds to investigate the relationship between the numbers and
the sound produced, and when she starts to input sequences she
clearly uses patterns and permutations. Her approach is logical
and systematic. In future work she can experiment with notes of
different length and she may want to investigate patterns in the
numbers which produce tuneful melodies. Work like this problem
solving gives pupils opportunities to use and apply mathematics,
and in this case has arisen in a musical context.
(2) In the second example, the problem has been set by the
teacher, and is an example of a purely mathematical situation.
Minimal introduction was made—pupils were simply asked to
Figure 5.3: Routes

investigate routes travelling along the grid lines of a square grid

from the bottom left corner to the top right. Rose’s written
conclusions after a short time working on the problem are shown
in Figure 5.3.
The investigation, although unfinished, has been tackled in a
systematic way by measuring the routes and then summarising
the information, albeit incorrectly. The routes themselves are not
drawn randomly, several pairs being mirror images of each other
along a diagonal. Having drawn two repeats in the first part Rose
decides to stop. She then uses her information to make a
prediction about routes on a 3 by 3 square, and is able to see that
this does not work—‘this theory is wrong’.
Investigations of this kind invite pupils to generate a set of
patterns and to answer questions arising out of the situation.
Pupils can be encouraged to work systematically and to present
their findings orally first and then in the written form. Such
activities are easy to find, but as in this case, they are not always
sustained and developed. This may be for a variety of good
reasons, one of which may be the problem of sustaining interest if
the avenue being pursued is not very productive. This is a
dilemma for the teacher trying to enable pupils to construct their
mathematics which will be addressed more fully later.
(3) In this last example, the teacher again sets the problem (see
Billington and Evans, 1987) but finds herself moving the pupils on
to extend it. Again we have an example of a pupil (only eight years
old) using pattern at various points in the problem, and well able
to communicate her solution in written form.
These examples were chosen to illustrate children thinking
mathematically in a variety of situations. There was evidence of
the children:
(1) Recognising patterns.

(2) Describing patterns and explaining the reason for them.
(3) Asking questions.
(4) Searching for patterns by exploring systematically.
(5) Exploring links and relationships and seeing when these
work.
(6) Using patterns and relationships in arriving at solutions.
Not all features, however, were present in each piece of work. The
use of pattern was clearly important, but because the evidence is
limited we do not know what learning experiences have
encouraged these children to work in this way. In the next
section, we will move on to look at ways in which the teacher can
Figure 5.4: Handshakes
encourage these aspects of mathematical thinking in her pupils by

choosing or modifying activities, using the potential of her pupils
as a social group, and experimenting with her own interventions.
Figure 5.5: More reporting on handshakes
Constructing Mathematics in Classroom

Situations
Rather than separate out the six features of pattern identified in
the last section, it will be better to look for teaching implications in
identifiable classroom situations. Inevitably the strands will
interrelate, depending on the activity and the pupils’ responses, so
it would be artificial to treat them individually. Certain features,
however, will be especially relevant at particular points in the
following cases.
Teaching a ‘Conventional’ Topic
Making ten
Instead of asking young pupils to do a variety of unconnected
‘sums’ using cuisenaire rods they could be asked to find as many
ways as possible of making ten with two rods. This may result in
an unsystematic set of combinations which can be discussed with
the group (Figure 5.6). Each pupil could share her set describing
them in any way she wishes:
‘I’ve put two yellows together, then a black and a green….’

‘My first is a white and a blue, that’s 1 and 9….’
Figure 5.6
Some pupils will have made the same arrangement, or used the
same pair of rods in a different order. If the pupils do not point
this out then the teacher may prompt with:
‘Has anyone made the same pattern?’

‘What do you notice about George’s set and LeeAnne’s set?’
‘Has anyone got a different set from everyone else?’
The teacher can extend the activity by asking pupils to pool their
different arrangements and build a systematic pattern 1+9, 2+8, 3
+7,
Figure 5.7
etc. (Figure 5.7). Just by looking at the shape patterns which

emerge, it should be clear if there are any combinations missing
and this omission would be a valuable opportunity for discussion.
Pupils can then be encouraged to describe the wall. They may
notice how the first rod is getting bigger while the second is
getting smaller, how the same pairs of rods appear but in different
orders, how the joins look like steps, etc. If appropriate they could
record the symbol sum for each arrangement, and be encouraged
to notice patterns in the symbols. These observations could then
be linked with the shap patterns in the wall so that the reasons
for the patterns are made explicit.
This activity is designed to bring out the patterns in the number
addition bonds for ten, and can be supplemented with calculator
work, practical work with objects and money work using ten one-
pence coins.
An extended piece of work with money could involve the use of all
the possible coins (1p, 2p, 5p) to make 10p. Here the complete
listing might be too time consuming for each individual, so groups
could be asked to come up with five possibilities and then all of
these could be pooled in a larger group. The question ‘How do we
know we have all the possibilities?’ would be a stimulus to
organizing the results systematically. Having each possible set of
coins on separate paper plates would enable groups to classify
them using different criteria and may reveal missing combinations.
More number work on the wall

Other relationships can be drawn out using the wall activity at a
later stage. By looking at the whole wall the pupils may see that:
They can be asked to rearrange the rods in different patterns and

to write the equivalent number sentence, e.g.
or
or
(One challenge might be to use one of their arrangements to find 1

+2 +3+4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9= ?).
The reader needs to be cautious about homing in on the above
examples because pupils will invariably come up with much more
Figure 5.8: Not just a wall of rods
complex arrangements which demonstrate many other

relationships (Figure 5.8).
These are just as valid and as rich in possibilities if pupils are
asked to describe the arrangements and the number relationships
within them, e.g.
Doing ‘An Investigation’

Although investigative approaches may be used in many different
situations, there are many sources of starting points, often called
investigations. The routes along the grid from the previous section
is such an example and will serve to illustrate aspects of the
teacher’s role in using such an activity.
In Rose’s account (see ‘Children using pattern in doing
problems, Example 2’) her starting point was to find the length of
all the routes on the three by three grid. This is a very accessible
entry point, since very little pre-knowledge is required, and as
such could be used with a whole class. Here the fact that there
are a large number of children is a positive advantage since
between them they may find all the possible routes, and any
errors in finding the route lengths can easily be checked amongst
the class. Recording of all the possibilities can be done
communally in a variety of ways:
(a) Each table shares individual results and comes up with a

set drawn on a large piece of paper. A whole class set is
drawn by comparing the results from each group and
eliminating repeats.
(b) One pupil records and the other pupils give instructions
without showing the recorder the route on the grid. These
instructions could be descriptions of the route, e.g. it looks
like a staircase, or step by step instructions, e.g. forward 1
turn right forward 1 turn left forward 2 turn right forward 1.
Knowing that all the possibilities have been obtained is quite

difficult in this problem, unlike in the handshake example, so the
pupils may be invited to sort the results in different ways to see if
there are any missing. Time spent on comparing the routes by
using mirrors and cutting the grids out and turning them is well
spent since the ideas of reflection and rotation may be useful in
finding all the possibilities for larger grids (Figure 5.9).
Figure 5.9: Reflection and rotation in routes
Once pupils are satisfied, they may start to look for patterns in
the lengths of the routes. Again, time spent here in discussion is
well spent. Rose, working on her own, noticed that the grid
lengths were all in the two-times table and went on to test a
conjecture. A big group will notice more patterns—for each length
route the number of possibilities is even and goes up in two’s,
there are more short routes than long, or that the number of turns
in any route is either 1, 2, 3, or 4…. The articulation of these
observations is valuable in its own right but it can also be the
stimulus for further exploration.
At this point there are different avenues which can be pursued,
e.g. finding a link between the size of the grid and the number of
routes, finding the longest/shortest route for different sized grids,
finding how many of each length route in different sized grids,
investigating rectangular grids…These questions constitute
problems to be solved, and if the number patterns generated can
be generalized then there are clear links with algebra. This
abundance is both exciting and daunting, requiring the teacher to

decide how she can help the pupils to move on.
One possibility is to stop the whole class before moving on to the
other grids and ask them to say what they are going to do next
and what they are going to investigate. This is important for a
variety of reasons. Firstly, planning investigations is a skill which
is frequently done for the pupils in excessively structured
activities. Secondly, if pupils are going to construct new
mathematical knowledge then they are more likely to sustain
interest if they have chosen their own line of enquiry.
The teacher still needs to help keep the momentum going and to
provide appropriate interventions. She may be aware that in the
next square grid (3 by 3) there are very many more possibilities
and that pupils may become bored quickly. At this point they
could display a summary of their results so far, and invite
contributions from other members of the class—These are the
routes we have found. Can you find some more?’
They can return to the problem later. Meanwhile, they could
either choose another line of enquiry or the teacher could suggest
one.
If they had reached an impasse with the 3 by 3 grid, a different
sort of experience would be gained by investigating the shortest
routes on a variety of square and rectangular grids, trying to
explain the result and then predicting the lengths of the shortest
routes for new grids. There is a fairly straightforward relationship
between the dimensions of the grid and the length of the shortest
routes which can be obtained by spotting patterns in the numbers,
but the real value of this activity would be in explaining why this
relationship works in terms of the original problem (Figure 5.10).
Figure 5.10
The teacher can then ask them to justify this so that they are all
convinced that the relationship will always work whatever the
dimensions of the grid.
It is easy to underestimate the amount of time required for
pupils to fully explore a typical investigation and it is tempting to
push them towards a result too quickly. A useful strategy is to
make time for review sessions when either the whole class or
groups stop work and go over what they have been doing. This
gives them an opportunity to clarify ideas, to collect together
results and to plan ahead. Sharing of work in progress also gives
pupils the opportunity to communicate what they have been doing
and to think about presenting their results to others. When the
teacher feels that enough time has been spent a final whole class
evaluation can be made where the progress of work from the
starting point to the different end points can be shared. In this
way, the class as a social group is constructing and evaluating their
collective findings. The class is working as a mathematical
community.
Moving Pupils On
Pupils themselves may reach points when present understandings
cannot be applied successfully to a new situation or when present
methods are found to be effective but time consuming. If such a
moment arises unexpectedly when a pupil recognizes a problem
and wants to resolve it, so much the better. Alternatively,
situations may be deliberately engineered by the teacher to expose
errors or reveal limitations in the pupils’ existing frameworks.
Creating Conflict
A common expression used by pupils and adults alike is ‘to
multiply by ten you add a nought.’
Some teachers would immediately put pupils right on this one
and say something like:
‘Well actually all the digits are moving to the left as they are
becoming ten times bigger and we have to put a nought in
the units column as a place holder.’
The trouble with that response, in my experience, is that pupils do

not recognize why their own simple rule should not be used. This
includes pupils who have a perfectly clear grasp of multiplication
and could demonstrate the sum in question with apparatus. An
alternative approach is to leave pupils uncorrected but to engineer

situations later in which they can see that their pattern only
works with whole numbers, and breaks down as a rule for
multiplying decimal numbers by ten.
The teacher may start with lots of whole number questions and
invite responses from the group:
5×10, 9×10, 12×10
Teacher: ‘You can do these easily. How about some harder ones?
Use your calculators if you can’t do them straight away
in your heads.’
98×10, 4,576×10, 3,456,789×10….
Teacher : ‘Is there a pattern here? How are you doing these?’
(Pupils’ answers accepted without evaluation.)
‘What about 1.5×10?’
This may generate the answer 1.50 amongst others, in which case the teacher can
use the conflict in the group as a learning moment.
Teacher: ‘Shall we just check that on the calculator?’
At this point the teacher may throw the problem back to the
pupils to explain. She may need to help: ‘What does 1.5 mean?’
‘Can you do 1.5×10 another way?’ ‘Can you draw a picture?’
‘When does adding a nought work?’ ‘Why?’ ‘Should we look for
patterns with other decimal numbers?’….
Looking for More Efficient Methods
Use of the calculator

Very simple starting points can often be very effective. Recently,
some pupils in a mixed Y3/4 class I had been working with in
school came to do some maths with me at the university and I had
bought some felt tip pens (8 at 27p each) for them to use.
We sat round in a big group and I asked them to work out how
much the pens had cost, with the aid of calculators. The several
different answers were written up with pupils saying how they had
arrived at the answer. Most of the pupils had used repeated
addition with variable success, and a few had used multiplication.
These methods were recorded as well. Then everyone checked
through slowly together. The emphasis was not on arriving at the
right answer quick but on sharing the group’s methods and
looking for advantage disadvantages. For instance, it was the
pupils who pointed out that they easily lost track in the repeated
addition method and that the multiplication method was quicker.
The activity led on spontaneously to looking at the relationship

between the two methods when one pupil announced that you
could do 27×8 or 8×27. This led to repeatedly adding 8 on the
calculator. At first the pupils did not count their steps—they
simply aimed for the target of 216. Later they all repeated the
addition and verified the number of steps. One pupil now
suggested repeatedly adding 4 to reach the target. A real situation
had led to a rich mathematical activity which explored the
relationship between repeated addition and multiplication and
generated a whole set of equivalent patterns:
27+27+27+27+27+27+27+27
8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8
+8
8×27
27×8
4+4+4+4+4+4…
The reader will be able to think of further patterns.
Finding a new command in Logo

Technology can be a powerful tool for pupils constructing
mathematics as can be seen from the calculator use in the last
example. Using Logo on a computer has a similarly liberating
potential with appropriate teacher intervention. One strategy is to
teach pupils new commands and then demonstrate how they
work, but another is to encourage work in which the need for a
new command will come from the pupils. In my experience, the
open task of drawing a picture often results in somebody needing
to draw a circle. Pupils often think there must be a special
command for a circle and are surprised that they can achieve a
very close approximation by repeatedly moving a bit and turning a
bit. This realization is often facilitated by asking pupils to walk
out the circle away from the screen. When they return and start to
type in
FD 1 RT 1 FD 1 RT 1 FD 1 RT 1 FD 1 RT 1 FD 1 RT 1…
they usually ask for a quick way of repeatedly executing these two
basic instructions from the pattern, and the teacher has a perfect
opportunity for introducing the REPEAT command.
A similar opportunity for pupils with experience of Logo is to
offer particular patterns as challenges (Figure 5.11).
Here the pupils may start with a small square:
TO SQUARE
REPEAT 4 [FD 100 RT 90]
END
Figure 5.11: Concentric squares in LOGO
then they may get themselves into position for the next with
something like
PU RT 90 FD 20 RT 90 BK 20
and move back into the editor to change the 100 in the square
procedure to 140.
Pupils will soon realize the need for a procedure which will draw
a square of any size and the time for introducing the variable
command is ripe:
TO SQUARE: SIZE
REPEAT 4 [FD: SIZE RT 90]
END
TO STEP: MOVE
PU RT 90 FD: STEP RT 90 BK :STEP
END
The pupils may then try SQUARE 100 STEP 20 SQUARE 140
STEP 20
SQUARE 160….
and further work may lead on to the introduction of the process of

recursion.
Conclusions
In this chapter I have interpreted the use of pattern quite widely
but have chosen familiar mathematical activities to illustrate how
it can be used to both increase the range of possibilities open to
children and to encourage the communication and sharing needed
to make it part of the learning process. It is important to realize that
patterns abound in many common mathematical situations, but
the class as a community can be encouraged to create new
knowledge by exploring systematically and explaining their
patterns in terms of the situations from which they arise. For the
teacher this may mean:
(1) Setting tasks which will generate a lot of examples/data

from the pupils.
(2) Giving time for regular discussion of this material, in which
everyone’s contribution is valued. Very often what is going
on in the teacher’s head is not the same as what is going on
in the pupil’s. The pupil may be pursuing a line which the
teacher had not thought about or may be held back by
misconceptions. Time taken listening and understanding
what the pupils are saying is well spent.
(3) Being patient when the discussion seems messy and
disorganized, and holding back before directing pupils.
(4) Not being afraid to challenge, tell, direct, or suggest ways
forward if it seems appropriate.
(6) Helping pupils to find different ways to organize and record
their patterns. Sorting, grouping and regrouping may give
different ways of seeing the patterns.
(7) Encouraging a review of work in progress either in group
discussion, or by using display.
(8) Extending the community by sharing classroom experiences
with colleagues, either at school or through a local
teachers’ group (e.g. ATM1).
Above all, the teacher who actively encourages the plethora of

patterns and relationships which can arise out of the simplest
situation, and welcomes this diversity as richness rather than
confusion will be more prepared for the wealth of mathematics
which will be created in her classroom.
Note
1 ATM—the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, 7 Shaftesbury

Street, Derby.
6
Constructing Mathematics through
Games
Andrew Davis and Deirdre Pettitt
Introduction
The term ‘game’ is delightfully all-embracing. It could cover many
ideas discussed earlier, such as the instances of socio-dramatic
play. Any attempt to find something common to all games would
probably be futile, as Wittgenstein memorably demonstrated. All
we can say here is that board games and card games are the
kinds of activities we especially have in mind in this chapter. We
will not be discussing Monopoly, Canasta, Ludo or Bridge, but
they are certainly examples of the types of games we want to
consider.
It is scarcely original to advocate the virtues of mathematical
games. So what has playing games to do with constructivism?
This is a perfectly reasonable question. The answer in summary
form is this. First, there are arguably aspects of games themselves
which echo the socially constructed nature of mathematics.
Second, if we build into our planning of game activities within the
mathematics curriculum certain specified teacher roles, we then
have a range of opportunities for inventing mathematics fully
exemplifying our constructivist principles. Examples of such roles
in classroom contexts will be developed later.
Even without a teacher role there is perhaps something
distinctive about the intrinsic character of some games linking
them closely to features of mathematics itself. This point is worth
developing a little.
Our ‘social constructivism’ sees mathematics as embodied in the
practices of human communities; there is agreement concerning
the use of abstract symbols, and about how propositions
expressed with such symbols relate one to another. Children are
gradually initiated into these systems of rules. At the other end of
the spectrum, advanced mathematicians may even create new
rules, stipulate uses of new symbols, and formulate new
mathematical propositions. They become increasingly aware of

ways in which aspects of the rules are governed by human
choices; that these features do not exist independently as absolute
features of mathematics.
The use of the natural number system to count discrete items
may seem wholly intuitive and unquestionable; how things must
be rather than a result of human decisions. The introduction of
zero, and later of negative numbers is much more obviously a
matter of contingent human invention, though, needless to say
hugely useful. Ideas about irrational and complex numbers take us
more and more deeply into baroque abstract structures which are
very obviously human creations.
Pupils are not always made aware in the mathematics classroom
that rules are devised, rather than uncovered (laid down by the
Deity?). It is foolish to pretend that mathematics for the majority
can resemble mathematics for Einstein. At the same time, it
seems unfortunate that as things are, only advanced
mathematicians have a chance of becoming aware of the
constructed character of the subject. Arguably we should seek
ways to help ordinary pupils even at the primary school level
towards at least a glimmering of such awareness.
In a good investigative activity, they may in a group context be
able to decide how to use a word or a symbol, and to appreciate
that given another decision, results would have been different. A
well-known example would be the 3×3 pin board activity in which
pupils are asked to discover how many different triangles can be
made. Pupils can be left to decide what the term ‘different’ is to
mean, rather than being told in advance by the teacher. Ideally,
several groups will carry out the investigation with various rules
for the use of ‘different’, and a discussion later could acknowledge
the consequence of the adoption of these distinct sets of rules.
One group will claim eight triangles, while another is convinced’
there are more. The teacher needs to help pupils to understand
that there is no question of one group being ‘right’ and another
‘wrong’. They are simply dealing with the consequences of
implementing a specific rule.
Now board games and card games involve pursuing the
consequences of adopting a given set of rules. Often enough the
rules are laid down for the game in question; an international
body, for instance, fixes the rules of chess. Children quite
naturally modify games rules to suit their own purposes; as a
child I played a version of chess with friends called ‘suicide chess’.
This may be a conventional alternative, and I would not want to
claim originality. Yet it felt to us at least, as though we had power
CONSTRUCTING MATHEMATICS THROUGH GAMES 85
to modify the rules, to agree on consistent implementation, and

then to play through the consequences. Of course we did not have
total freedom. The game had to retain an internal coherence, and
enough of the rules of chess had to remain to entitle it to be
thought of as a version of chess in any sense. Hence gameplaying
and game-modification can parallel aspects of mathematical
activity.
Perhaps it is not necessary for pupils only to play mathematical
games for these resonances between games and mathematics to
be tapped, but this is a bolder claim, and we intend to restrict
ourselves to mathematics in this discussion. One significant
element in our games proposals will be the opportunities for
students to stand back from a given set of rules, and to try the
effect of altering one or more aspect of them. Ways in which this
might happen are explored through several examples discussed in
some detail below.
Certainly it has been fashionable for many years to advocate the
use of games in school mathematics. The response from the
majority of primary teachers has been muted. There have even
been earnest pieces of research designed to discover whether
children learn mathematics the ‘better’ through games. (For
instance, a number of such studies are discussed in Ernest,
1986). The naivety of such a research question will become
apparent shortly.
The teaching roles to be discussed here often involve
substantial interaction with groups of pupils. This does not imply
that there is something ‘wrong’ with children playing games on
their own. Indeed, if you know how to get groups of five to six year
olds to do this without you for periods of up to 20 minutes, you
could make a fortune selling this information to eager colleagues.
Of course, children can gain from such activities without a
teacher.
We have selected for scrutiny games chosen from a number of
distinct categories. Recent typologies of games have made usefully
familiar the idea that we can classify games according to their
objectives. Games might:
(a) Practise skills and help pupils to retain ‘facts’.

(b) Practise or consolidate the use of mathematical terms.
(c) Provide opportunities for problem solving.
(d) Help pupils to acquire new concepts. (Developed from
Ernest, 1986)
Obviously this list is not complete. Nor is it suggested that a game

might belong only to one category. More significantly, the
classification makes no reference to the role of the teacher. How
far any of these objectives are promoted would seem to depend
significantly on the teacher. For instance, games ostensibly for the
recall of facts could be turned by teacher and pupils in context to
new purposes. Some games may lend themselves more than
others to being wrenched from the designer’s original objectives in
the direction of new purposes, given an active teacher. With this in
mind, we discuss ‘drill and practice’ games in addition to the more
overtly investigative problem-centred games to try to indicate
possibilities for ‘constructivist’ intervention.
A minor sub-plot of this chapter might well be the claim that
recent attempts to classify maths games are deficient because
they ignore the teacher, as are recent attempts to assess the
effectiveness of games. This deafness to the teacher role may stem
from a prevailing attitude to games which corresponds to the view
of dramatic play discussed earlier; the activities are seen as less
than serious, and to be done on completion of the real work. Given
the potential value of games, it is strongly urged that they are
built into the maths curriculum along with the other more
conventional activities involving written recording. This, of course,
requires careful planning, and a clear view of the concepts,
processes or skills which a given game might foster when
enhanced by a specific teacher role.
With this in mind, we proceed to a constructivist treatment of
several kinds of games. The games are likely to be familiar to
many primary teachers.
Dominoes
These, of course, can be attempted at a huge range of levels, and
are widely used for English as well as for mathematical purposes.
Nursery children may be matching pictures, or pictured items up
to five. Reception children may be matching pictures to numerals
while top infants match small amounts of money shown in coins
to amounts of money written in figures or numbers to simple
calculations using any of the four operations. Juniors might
attempt the matching of pictured fractions to fractions written
symbolically, matching symbolic fractions to decimals, linking
fractions to equivalent fractions, matching two or three digit
numbers to place value illustrations employing Dienes, etc.
When children play on their own they are practising skills,
perhaps of turning fractions into decimals, and at a later stage
Figure 6.1: A simple domino
ensuring instant recall of such correspondences. Or again, they

may be practising the skill of multiplying numbers, and when the
game is encountered at a later stage, they are consolidating their
mastery of the relevant number facts. This is fine.
Suppose the teacher sits down with a group of children who are
familiar with the game. She decides to take a set of dominoes
which are ‘too easy’ for the children, for reasons which will
become apparent very shortly. So some reasonably competent Y3s
might be given a set with numerals on each side…perhaps the
numbers only go up to 20, as in Figure 6.1.
The teacher reminds her pupils that the easy (and very boring)
rule for placing dominoes would be that numbers have to be the
same. She asks the pupils to think of other rules. Depending on
how used the pupils are to discussing their mathematics, and
obviously their current grasp of basic operations, they might come
up with one or more of the following:
Numbers must add up to 10.

Odd number goes with even number.
Numbers must differ by 3.
Numbers must add up to a prime number.
Numbers must add up to a number which is a multiple of 3.
The teacher might invite the pupils to decide on one of these new
sets of rules and to play a couple of rounds, while she goes to
attend to other children. On her return, she might ask them
whether there had been any problems. Perhaps there weren’t
enough dominoes for the implementation of a particular rule to be
practicable. The teacher invites children to suggest how the set
might be extended to make the game satisfactory. Both discussion
and note taking might aid the thought processes here. The
children might discover on the other hand that certain rules entail
that players keep having to ‘knock’, e.g. the prime number rule,
perhaps, and that even if the set is extended an interesting game
still does not result.
The point about whether children are used to working with each
other and with the teacher is fundamental. It would be easy to
misread the presentation of this example, and as a teacher to
direct the children closely into using all the variants of the rules
outlined above. As with the earlier discussion of drama and story,
it is hoped that some of what is described here can actually be
teased from the children; a subtle art, but one which becomes
easier when both teacher and pupils have had experience of
learning in this fashion.
On another occasion, the teacher might encourage children to
extend the scope of new rules. What other ideas about numbers
could be exploited? Their order? Perhaps the numbers form a two
digit number which has to have such and such a property…it
must be a multiple of 3, a triangular number, or whatever.
With older juniors a player might put two dominoes down at
each turn, according to a rule she decides at the time. In a simple
example, Sarah decides that she is forming two digit odd numbers.
Hence she puts a 5 to the right of a 7, and then puts a 1 to the
right of the 5, making in succession as she sees it, 75, and then
51. Debbie then places her cards according to what she deems to
be the same rule. She explains her actions to Sarah and it is to be
hoped that they can come to an agreement about the nature of the
rule, or at least discuss the fact that more than one rule fits the
‘data’ on the table. Debbie might well have thought that Sarah was
forming two digit numbers which were multiples of 3, and gone on
to form some more of the same. Sarah might object initially, until
she sees that Debbie’s interpretation was perfectly legitimate in
the circumstances. This is becoming quite complicated; there is
scope for vigorous discussion. The teacher will be vital here. That
is not to say that more able Y5s and Y6s, given the appropriately
stimulating start, might not explore some of these matters at some
depth before calling on an adult.
Ladder Games
A very familiar family is outlined here, with some suggestions for
new twists which might help children to think actively about the
properties of the numbers concerned. (I am unable to credit any
author with these games; the idea seems to be widespread.) They
Figure 6.2: Ladder game with decimals
tend to be for juniors rather than infants, though some simple

forms might work with Y2s.
For the uninitiated let us describe one moderately hard variant
involving decimals (Figure 6.2). Up to four players may play. You
need: ‘ladders’ divided into 10 spaces and a pack of cards labelled
with decimals from .01 to 1 (100 cards in all).
Each player uses his own ‘ladder’. Players take turns to remove
a card from the top of the pack. They then decide where to place
the card on the ladder’. The object of the game is to end up with
the decimal cards in order of magnitude, with the smallest at the
bottom of the ladder and the largest at the top. As the game
proceeds children may be unable to place their card on their
ladder. For example, a player may have .12 and .2 immediately
next to each other on his ladder, and then draw a .17 card. This
needed to be placed between .12 and .2, but it cannot. Hence it is
a ‘dead’ card, and he places it to one side. The game ends when
all the cards in the pack are used up. The winner is the player
with the least ‘dead’ cards. Alternatively, the winner is the first to
complete their ladder.
As described, this is an enjoyable game which the teacher can
teach the pupils, and they can then play it quite happily without
further attention. They practise ordering decimals; the game could
provide the teacher with a useful initial diagnostic snapshot of
children’s attainments if shown to a group with whom she was not
yet familiar.
So far opportunities for mathematical invention are not

particularly to the fore. However, suppose the teacher suggests to
experienced veterans that a set of blank cards is supplied in
addition to the decimal cards. If a player is in a tight corner, she
may write a new decimal. Suppose she draws a card she cannot
place. Then she could be allowed to write a card to suit her…a
card which she could put somewhere else on her ladder. The rule
might be that she had to use a decimal not in the pack. So if she
had a space above .15, for instance, she could not write .16 if the
pack itself contained all the decimals to two places from 0 to 1
which would include .16. Instead, she could be permitted to write
a three place decimal…perhaps .154, or .156, etc. This venture
would be stimulated by the teacher in discussion with the
children. What other numbers could the child write to fill in
remaining ladder spaces? The effect of a good discussion would be
that children would ‘zoom in’ to a number line already expanded
to show decimals, and would be helped to invent decimals which
are ‘in between’ other numbers. Familiar issues concerning the
way the place value system is extended to cover decimals would be
re-explored.
In an easier guise, ladder games ask players to order whole
numbers from a pack provided with numbers from 1 to 100. Again,
veterans could be encouraged to write themselves out of difficult
situations, the rule once more being that they could not use
numbers in the pack. They would be encouraged to come up with
fractions, or decimals, or even to choose either.
A challenging version of the game contains a mixture of
fractions, decimals and percentages, representing numbers in
these three ways from .01 through to 1, with only one of each
number. So, for example, if a half occurs in the pack as 50 per
cent, it does not also figure as .5 or ½. Or if a quarter is
represented in the pack as ¼ then it does not also appear as 0.25
or 25 per cent. This requires pupils to be around level 5–6 in
National Curriculum terms. They could be challenged to write
extra cards in decimal form if otherwise they would be unable to
play a card to their ladder. Undoubtedly the opportunity to create
new cards to escape from difficult situations in a sense
undermines the game-like quality of the activity, but this need not
affect either motivation or mathematical interest.
Place Value Game: Numero

One more brief example concludes this section, and again it has
no pretensions to novelty. Two children, A and B armed with
Figure 6.3
paper and pencil are supplied with a pack of cards marked with
numerals 0 to 9. Only one of each numeral is supplied.
They draw on the paper two sets of three boxes, as in
Figure 6.3; these will eventually become two three-digit numbers.
A’s objective in the game is to make a three digit number larger
than B’s, and vice versa. They take it in turns to draw a card.
They may decide whether to write the number in one of their
squares, or in one of their opponent’s squares. When a card has
been used, it is placed at the bottom of the pack. When six cards
have been drawn, the winner may be determined, though often it
is obvious well before the end.
Those who have used this with Y2s, Y3s or Y4s over the years
will testify to the children’s enjoyment of it. Clearly it provides
practice of of place value, gives the teacher who uses it with a new
group the opportunity to make a first step into diagnosing place
value problems, and informal ideas about probability may also be
encouraged. The objective of making the larger three digit number
may be varied. Four digit numbers could be tried, or decimals,
etc.
After reasonably extensive experience of the game, the teacher
may venture with Y3s and Y4s at least into some discussion.
Which numbers do they like drawing early in the game? Why?
Which numbers are difficult to decide about? Why? So far, this is
fairly obvious, and what most teachers would do quite naturally at
some stage without giving the matter much thought. By way of
putting more control into the hands of the pupils, the cheater’s
fantasies might be made legitimate. Suppose, the teacher suggests
to a group, you were able to organize the order in which the cards
came up, rather than a decently random sequence being available
from an efficient card shuffle. First of all, how could you fix it for
the first player to win with a given objective? Or the second
player? How could you make life as difficult as possible for both of
them? Once you have recorded your cheater’s charter, find some
willing victims who can test your theories.
Things can become quite interesting if you make the objectives a
little more esoteric, as Dave Kirkby suggests in some of his
booklets on these games (Kirkby, 1983). The aim might be to reach
the nearest three digit number to 501, and to prevent your
partner from getting as near as you. Other possibilities might be
to try to get a prime number and to stop your partner from so
doing, etc. Organizing the card pack to help one player rather than
the other to win might take some thought. The game might be
widened to allow for three players, with nine boxes to fill. On any
one turn, a player can write in one of his own boxes, or in a box
belonging to one of his two opponents. In the spirit of earlier
activities described in this book, it would be nice to have a session
with the children in which experienced players come up with fresh
rules, and these can be tested out.
Inventing Mathematics Through Games: Relying

less on the Teacher
As noted earlier, there is nothing ‘wrong’ with children playing
games on their own. Apart from the evident difficulties of
organization, the task for teachers may be to ensure that children
do so as profitably as possible. It has to be accepted that teachers
cannot be everywhere at once so, having accepted that maximum
benefit occurs when teachers can work with children to guide
their inventions, we can look at how teachers working with
children can spill over into self-selected and directed activities. A
first point is that, because they have played games with teachers,
children know that these activities are valued in the classroom.
Children often play cards and other mathematical games
outside of school, learning some mathematics painlessly and
enjoyably. In school enjoyment continues. However, it seems
necessary to us that children should also Be aware that they are
learning mathematics. Children understand that school has
serious purposes. They tend to object to activities that they don’t
regard as their ‘work’ which more often than not in their view, is
the commercial mathematics scheme (Desforges and Cockburn,
1989). So, if games children play without the teacher are to hold
children’s interest they need to be seen as part of the mathematics
curriculum, not just as things to do when work has been
completed. Furthermore, because children have been made

familiar with games they have some understanding of rules and
constraints, know how to alter rules with common agreement,
know that new strategies can be invented and realize that it is
necessary to think ahead. The classroom ethos, in short, is
permeated by the broad constructivist principles we advocate.
Teachers also have a crucial role in setting up games for
children to play without them, starting, of course, with how to
play. They also select, and encourage children to play those games
which are likely to be of most value to any particular group. This
requires awareness of attainment and concepts which will match
or challenge that attainment. A good many games played without
the teacher will be practice. Practice is essential and a number
game can provide many more sums in the same period of time
than when worksheets are used. However, children will not benefit
from practising skills which they already have. Once calculation
has become automatic and fast no further benefit is available
unless the game is made more challenging or there is a possibility
of higher order invention through practice of lower order skills.
This is possible if, for example, the need to get a little quicker
causes children to count on, instead of counting all from one.
Teachers have to be aware of ceilings and possibilities in the
selection of games.
From time to time teachers will also have to observe children
who are working without them. They have to check their hunches
and the operation of the game. In addition, of course, children
absorbed in a game offer a splendid opportunity for informal and
unobtrusive assessment. Teachers will also be checking how the
social groupings they have set up work in practice. Groups can be
constituted by friendship, attainment, mixed attainment or
randomly (always bearing in mind that the game should be
broadly appropriate to learning). It seems sensible to have higher
attainers working with lower attainers. Often this benefits both
groups. However, if this is to work higher attainers also have to be
kind and patient, not only about mathematics but also about
fumbled shuffling or wild guesses or general slowness. Not all
children are helpful to ‘slowcoaches’. Adults can learn from hard
taskmasters. One of the authors improved rapidly at cribbage
when her partner deducted her uncounted points from her score.
Whether children can cope with this sort of thing lies within the
judgment of the teacher. Teachers will also be watching to see
when a game has to be withdrawn or extended.
The character of the rules of a game also needs monitoring.
Unless players are very evenly matched the rules should ensure
that each player has a turn where he or she has a chance to think.
That is, the rules should not be like snap where the quickest child
wins every time. Ideally there should also be opportunities built
into a game for every child to attend to others turns as well as
their own.
The game which follows can and has been played by children as
young as top Reception. It has been selected because it has been
found to enable children not only to practise existing counting
skills but also to invent basic addition and to begin to look for
complex patterns in how numbers are constituted. They do this
for themselves or by observing other players. The game is called
Make 5 but can be adapted to use any suitable number.
Make Five
Materials: 36 cards, 6 numbered 0, 6 numbered 1, 6 numbered 2,
6 numbered 3, 6 numbered 4, 6 numbered 5
Number of players: 3
Method: Cards are shuffled and dealt out face down to each
player. In turn, each player turns a card face up next to his or her
pile. The player who has turned a card over may collect all the
cards which are face up which total 5, e.g. 3 and 2. The cards
collected are kept separately by each child and the winner has the
most cards when they have been exhausted.
What children learn: To start with children look for the obvious
pairs like 2 and 3. Before long they will notice that zero can be
involved, e.g. 5 and 0 and that more than two numbers can be
collected, e.g. 2 and 2 and 1. The child waiting for his or her turn
is likely to begin to predict, e.g. ‘I need a 2’. This means that the
child is dealing with
which baffles many children. It will probably still baffle them in its
early written notation, which is normally expressed as
Transfer from practical work to written notation is at least as hard

as transfer from written work to use and application. If teachers
at some point observe that children are comfortable with the idea
of ‘how many more needed’ there is an opportunity to intervene,
suggest that children record their scores and help them to do so.
The connection between the sums and the notation may thereby be
established.
Notes on ‘Make Five’

A rule needs to be established that only the top exposed cards are
taken into account. Otherwise, a child might take a 3 from an
exposed pile and note that the card underneath was zero and take
that too. Cards which are not collected after a 5 is made can be
returned to the bottom of the owner’s pile. It is important that
only the child whose turn it is collects a five if there is one. It is
worth repeating that this gives a child a chance to think and
others a chance to make suggestions.
We turn now to some practical issues.
Designing and Making Materials for a Game

There is no reason not to use and especially adapt games which
are commercially available. Sometimes these are rather too ornate
and children are attracted to the decorations not the
mathematics. More importantly the claims for the concepts which
can be learned are occasionally dubious. Any game where
counters are moved round a track involves counting but not as
can be claimed, counting on. (That is, if your counter is on 5 and
you throw 3, you count 1,2,3 not 6,7,8.) Indeed, for the youngest
children it is preferable not to number spaces at all. This only
confuses counting. Sometimes commercial games do not have a
start which is not on the track. This is needed, otherwise children
start to count on the track, i.e. at 2, which is not the way to
introduce children to a counting track. A respected mathematics
scheme even numbers the first space on a track as zero which is
confusing. So, use such games but do not assume that because
they are published they are beyond criticism.
Making one’s own games is not difficult. It is essential to try out
any new idea with children before you expend time and effort with
felt tips and sticky transparent protection. See if it works and
teaches the concepts you have identified and then make a more
permanent item. You can tell children that your first attempt may
need revision and have them comment and make suggestions.
What Sorts of Things Attract Children or Put Them

Off?
Your prototypes will not put children off. They tend to be more
interested in the game than the presentation. They especially
enjoy any game where items can be collected. These can be coins,
of course, or Christmas cracker snaps or any tiny toys or bits of
sparkly broken jewellery. Exchange games also benefit from

interesting items to swap and counters for moves are liked more
and are more easily identified if they are not just coloured disks.
(Remember five green houses for a red hotel and the flat iron and
the battleship in Monopoly?) Younger children tend to prefer short
games and will play a short game several times more eagerly than
one long one.
Games frequently contain a competitive element. Most children
do not seem to be over competitive or worry too much if they do
not win.
If a game is played several times, of course, there is more
chance of winners being spread. Children like to finish, i.e. in a
track game each child coming second or third will often say ‘Now
‘I’ve won’. The negotiations such as ‘whose turn is it?’ can become
minor quarrels but sometimes children seem to prefer these
negotiations to playing with a computer which brooks no
argument. Frequently the order in which children decide to take
turns seems odd. Often it is not the expected clockwise direction
but goes backwards and forward across players. However, children
are rather good at remembering an order which they established.
Overall, children like games and are unlikely to have to be dragged
from ‘work’ in their books if they also know that these games
make them better at mathematics.
Other Practical Matters

How games will be stored and will be available to teachers and
children need to be thought through, often at the design stage.
Each game needs to have its own box or folder to which is firmly
affixed:
(a) The concepts and the level of each concept which the game
may teach, e.g. ‘addition within 20’.
(b) The materials in a list so children can check these before
and after a game.
(c) How to play.
Instructions to be read and written are important to the English

curriculum as well as to mathematics. Children can be asked to
make their own games, which is a logical extension to playing and
tests their mathematics. They will also learn how hard it is to
explain what is clear to you, to others. If a game is extended, for
example changing counting to addition by using two dice it is
probably best to make it again and put it in a fresh container.
Otherwise instructions get very muddled and complex. Of course,

children can be encouraged to use their own extensions and
constraints when playing an existing game. ‘How can you make it
harder?’ is sensible if easy-peasy is the complaint.
Conclusion
Games which children play by themselves are almost invariably
more limited in scope and application than those where teachers
are involved.
However, like those games they provide the necessity to use and
apply mathematics and to extend skills, strategies and cognition.
Often it is not until this need arises that children see mathematics
in school as more than getting the answers right in their books.
Games are perhaps the easiest and most direct link or bridge
between pencil and paper activities and what you can do with
these skills.
7
The World of Sounds and
Mathematical Construction
Andrew Davis
Introduction
On the whole just two of our five senses are made use of by
children learning mathematics at Key Stages 1 and 2, namely sight
and touch. This chapter explores the thought that we might
extend that number to three, and include hearing. (This idea was
touched on, of course, by Maria Goulding in chapter 5.) It should
be acknowledged at the outset that there is no intrinsic link
between constructivism and the idea that we might make more
use of sounds within primary mathematics. However, the idea has
the advantage of novelty. We have an excuse to explore some more
unusual activities while at the same time illustrating further the
basic principles for teaching and learning mathematics defended
in chapter 2.
Consider first some broad considerations in favour of employing
sounds during the first stages of learning mathematics. The
senses of sight and touch play a very significant role in early
number curricula. Young children sort objects according to colour
and shape. They are shown small sets of objects and taught to
count them. When the child has had plenty of experience with
physical objects, whether commercially produced or natural, they
are invariably presented with work sheets or cards for practice
and consolidation.
One common assumption is that the stage of illustrations on
such sheets or cards, is a stepping stone on the way to abstract
understanding. Teachers and the producers of commercial
schemes seem to agree on this. Pictures of elephants to be
counted, are one step away from the physical reality of live
creatures, and one small step towards context free numbers. The
two-dimensional diagrams of Dienes apparatus—the depiction of
hundreds, tens and units, are thought to move the child away
from the necessity of handling wooden or plastic apparatus, and
THE WORLD OF SOUNDS AND MATHEMATICAL CONSTRUCTION 99
towards a stage where computations can be performed without

the benefit of pictures or materials.
Even more significantly, we have a tendency to use this half-way
house notation in the ways in which we require the children to
respond. In their answers, the children may be expected to draw
so many elephants or to ‘match the members of one set with the
members of another by drawing lines between them.’ They may be
asked to draw quasi-Dienes pictures of the tens and units of
which such and such a number is constituted. Again, these visual
numbers are thought to be less abstract than answers which
merely use symbols; they are supposed to be closer to the
experiences of physical objects than the corresponding number
sentences in symbolic form.
This is not the place to review research into the role of materials
(and by implication, pictures of materials) in fostering the growth
of key mathematical concepts. As a matter of fact research
evidence suggests that many children do not readily transfer from
operating with physical objects to abstract thinking, even in the
context of carefully structured programmes which seemingly make
good use of relevant equipment (see, for example Johnson, 1989).
However, we assume here that we need to improve the quality of
learning sequences in which materials play an important role,
rather than to abandon such practical work in the face of the
mixed messages stemming from this research.
Given this assumption, this chapter contends that there should
be occasions when the child is expected to hear and to produce
sounds in the context of a mathematical problem, rather than
demonstrating something with physical objects or drawing,
reading or writing. The proposal is meant to be a modest one:
evidently there would be formidable practical problems with a
wholesale auditory maths curriculum’ Numbers should be kept
small. Using sounds is constrained by short term memory
limitations. I can see thirteen ducks on the page, and if I forget
how many there are or count them incorrectly, I can count them
again. If I hear thirteen sounds, they are gone and I cannot repair
any mistakes or check my memory.
Good infant teachers have always known that for a substantial
majority of their pupils, you need at least twenty ways of
presenting the idea before the children begin to grasp it. You have
to present the idea in a variety of contexts, using a range of
apparatus, with a diversity of language. Key Stage 1 teachers have
long understood, to put this point another way, what it is to ‘know’
a mathematical proposition; some time was spent in chapter 2 in
unpacking this elusive idea. ‘Knowing’ entails being able to apply
what is known in an indefinitely large number of diverse

circumstances.
Possibly a minority of children will find it easier to learn from
sounds than from pictures. One obvious set of candidates would
be visually impaired children. However, there is very little in the
literature about any work being done of this kind for such pupils.
Any readers who know of any might be kind enough to let us
know!
Low attaining juniors—Y3s and Y4s—need something new to
revive their flagging motivation in matters of basic counting. They
have exhausted the average teacher’s repertoire, and often
associate typical materials with the Key Stage 1 classes to which
they are very anxious to feel superior. Activities with sounds may
well strike these children as novel, even if they are in the last
analysis a mundane reworking of simple number ideas.
Where sounds are being counted, or where sounds and
movements are being coordinated, we have on the face of it
excellent contexts for promoting early counting and matching
which rival the more conventional processes involving physical
objects. For instance, in a case of simple matching, the teacher
might sound three on a tambourine. Children would respond with
the same number of sounds on their instrument. The subtle
difference between this process, and processes of ‘matching’ using
objects, is that pupils have to count, and remember. They then
construct a matching set of sounds.
In work leading up to addition and subtraction, the teacher
sounds out, say four. The child is asked to respond with one
more. The child has to remember, and then go on one, so as to give
five in total. Children might practise building up numbers. A row
of children might have instruments: each one might be required to
do one more than the previous one. Or the opposite. Begin with,
say five. Then each child might be asked to do one less than the
one before, until zero is reached.
Using sounds might be a device for strongly encouraging the
‘counton‘method of adding. For instance, the teacher is working
with the children on adding 7 and 3. The children up to now have
persisted in counting up all the numbers…1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…8, 9,
10. The teacher might announce that she is going to make 7
sounds, and then 3 sounds, and that she wants the children to
help her discover the total. Accordingly, she sounds 7. The 7 have
now ‘gone’. When she sounds out three more, the children will be
compelled to ‘go on’ from 7, and say 8, 9, 10 as the new sounds
are produced.
These very basic activities seem to link with the ‘auditory

patterning’ recommended by Carol Thornton (Thornton, C., 1989).
Clap one, two or three times and ask students to tell how
many claps they heard…
Close your eyes while I bounce the ball. How many bounces
do you hear?
Or the activity might be introduced during a music period
to the beat of a drum or a tambourine.
When children become comfortable with this activity, she suggests

that the teacher proceed to the following:
How many numbers do you hear? Say two or three numbers

in sequence (forward or backward) and ask students to tell
how many numbers they heard, for example:
‘Six, seven, eight’ (Three numbers)
‘Ten, nine’ (Two numbers)
Given 5+3, for example, she observed that her students tended to
recognize (without finger counting) when they had counted on
three more:
‘FIVE-six, seven, eight’.
Examples with a Constructivist Flavour

So much then, for general justifications and exemplifications of
the role of sounds in mathematics learning. Constructivist
principles have not been explicitly addressed. We now move to a
consideration of a range of classroom activities where, as in
previous chapters, the suggested interactions between pupils,
between teachers and pupils, and the location of the control of the
processes is more explicitly Constructivist.
Before proceeding, we need to make one or two practical points.
Some of the following ideas need ‘sound dice’. A tape recorder or
computer is set up to produce random groups of sounds, which
may mimic ordinary dice, but frequently are idiosyncratic…details
will be given later when we elaborate the activities. The ideal
mechanism for these in the 1990s is the computer. It is easier to
control. A tape recorder may be used with quite young children,
but it has to be switched off after a given group of sounds.
However, with careful training at the beginning, five and six year
olds can manage perfectly well. For those with simple programming
skills, it would be straightforward to program the computer in the

corner of your classroom to produce groups of sounds in the way
required.
Several ideas are elaborated in some detail in the remaining
part of the main chapter, with explicit attention given to
‘constructivist’ developments. A number of other sound activities
are appended at the end of this chapter. The constructivist slant
on these is not comprehensively spelled out; we hope that the
discerning reader can by then select and transform according to
whatever constructivist leanings he or she may have acquired.
Fletcher Games with Sound Dice

These are auditory versions of games for Reception children found
in the old Fletcher scheme resource book. Just one example is
outlined here. The games promote very simple counting and
matching. The game is best played with two or three children so
that individual children do not need to wait long for their turn.
Prepare a cassette with clearly separated groups of sounds,
paced so they can be counted by young children. Sometimes there
will be three sounds in a group, and sometimes four. Ensure that
it is a matter of chance which it is. Or provide a computer
programme to produce similar sounds. Also create a game
worksheet with pictures of stools without legs on which children
can draw, or similar boards, with cutout ‘legs’ which may be
placed under the stool seats.
Figure 7.1: Stools game
The game proceeds as follows: the cassette has groups of

sounds…either fours, or threes, with clear spaces between each
group. Use this as a ‘sound dice’. Or the computer, on pressing
the space bar, will produce either four sounds, or three. Whether
a given group of sounds is a ‘four’ or a ‘three’ is entirely random.
Each child has a paper or board of legless stools (the first stool
is drawn with legs to show that three are required for a completed
stool). Children take turns to listen and count a group of sounds,
switching off the recorder when their sounds have finished. If four
sounds are heard, the child does nothing. If three are heard, the
child draws in three legs. The first child to complete a row of

stools wins.
With an adult present, all the children might be encouraged to
count and match the sounds as they are heard, by saying the
number words, and putting out a unifix block or multilink for
each sound. Alternatively, stool legs can be put out from a central
stock; pupils can then compare the result with the completed
stool on their board, and decide whether they may put legs on
another stool. When children have grown accustomed to the dice,
a ‘constructivist’ development might consist of a blindfolded child
armed with a drum who would take over the function of the dice.
She would decide whether to beat three, or another number. In
contrast to the work with the tape or computer sequence, there
could be a choice about what the number was to be when it was
not the special number three. The control of the activities would
be shifted towards the children. Pupils would be choosing
numbers they felt able to cope with.
Children could later be encouraged to suggest other objects to
figure on new game boards…dolls, spiders, beetles, etc., and to
work out what kind of dice would be suitable for such games.
Evidently discussion with an adult would be crucial: these ideas
would not emerge full-blown from a typical group of reception
children! If they were involved in creating the boards, they would
need to ensure that each board contained the same number of
objects, and that the first object had the appropriate number of
legs, buttons, windows or whatever. There could be many
opportunities for pupils to make choices, building on their existing
mathematical understanding, with appropriate interventions from
the skilled teacher.
Beginnings of Algebra: Pattern Making in Sound

The following activities can begin with Reception children, and
appropriately extended in complexity to suit Y1 and Y2 pupils. The
relevant National Curriculum programme of study is level 1 of
Attainment Target 3:
Copying, continuing and devising repeating patterns

represented by objects/apparatus or single digit numbers.
Have available any small set of contrasting instruments.

(However, claps, voice sounds, whispers, etc. could easily be used
instead.) The teacher sounds out a simple sequence, e.g.
xylophone, xylophone, tambourine, xylophone, xylophone,
tambourine, xylophone, xylophone, tambourine. The children are

first asked to copy the pattern. After some practice, they could be
encouraged to continue it also.
Next, children can be encouraged to create their own sequence
and repeat it. They may have to be restrained from making
matters too complicated! Some children may need to spend plenty
of time at this stage. Friends could be invited to make specific
movements to correspond with the sounds…a jump for the
tambourine, and a crouch for the xylophone. Sometimes the
movement sequences could be composed first, and then the sound
pattern constructed to correspond with these.
At a later stage, the teacher could begin to encourage the use of
symbol notation, e.g. associating a simple shape or colour with a
particular noise. For example, square=tambourine beat;
triangle=triangle beat; circle=chime bar. The children would draw,
or place prepared symbols from left to right (itself a very useful
feature for a range of Key Stage 1 pupils).
They could then compose their own patterns, and record in this
simple notation. Other children could ‘play’ from the ‘score’. In the
hall, again movements could be associated with particular
sounds, to produce repeating patterns of activity…jump, jump,
skip, jump, jump, skip, etc. Children working in twos or threes
could be challenged to see how many different patterns could be
produced from two or three sound types.
Advanced developments might focus rather more on the
numbers of sounds concerned. Associated ideas involving rhythm
are mentioned in a separate sketch below.
‘Playing Turtle’ Using Sound Commands

One child takes on the role of ‘turtle’, i.e. the device driven by
LOGO type commands. One or more associates may issue
commands to the child pretending to be the device which she
obeys implicitly. Commands could include FORWARD n (meaning
that the turtle must take n steps forward, BACK n (meaning that
the turtle takes n steps back), LEFT (turn a quarter of a turn (90
degrees) to the left), and RIGHT means a quarter of a turn to the
right.
The ‘master’ could have three musical instruments with which
to issue commands.
Perhaps a drum or tambourine for the number of STEPS to

be taken.
Perhaps a low chime bar note for LEFT.
A high chime bar note for RIGHT.
The ‘master’ can attempt to steer turtle to a particular objective,

round furniture, through a large maze made from boxes/painted
on large sheets of paper placed on the floor, etc. The turtle’s job is
to listen M carefully to the sounds, and move accordingly.
Young children and low attainers would need to take the activity
in very small chunks at a time. That is to say, the sounds for
steps would be issued, for instance, and the turtle would execute
these immediately, before any new sound commands were
forthcoming. Older and more experienced children may be able to
execute short command sequences after hearing them. The
‘master’ may need pencil and paper on which to plan his
commands.
The turtle might systematically malfunction, e.g. always take
two more steps than those asked for. This kind of suggestion
would be introduced by the teacher, and systematically practised
by the children before they were sent away to try out variants on
their own. The activity then turns into a ‘guess my rule’ process
with a slightly unusual format. After teacher initiation, the
direction of activity would gradually be given into the hands of the
pupils. The capacity to formulate a coherent malfunction, and to
manifest it consistently, would be a key development on the part of
the child. Certain kinds of attempts would force children to stretch
their ideas. What should be done if the malfunction is to take two
less steps than those asked for, and the master commands one
step forward? Would it be logical to take one step backwards?
Perhaps malfunctions could be planned by pairs of children, and
this thorny issue could be debated before a decision was
implemented.
Guess My Rule: Sound Version

This is the old ‘function machine’ activity, using sounds. It
belongs nicely with the turtle activity above, if the latter is
developed to include the malfunction idea.
It should be played with a small group of children, each of whom
has a musical instrument of some kind. Child X, who has a drum,
thinks of a simple rule, e.g. ‘add two’. Other children take turns to
use their instruments to sound out numbers. For example,
someone plays five notes on a chime bar. X responds with seven
beats on the drum. Children keep trying numbers on X, until they
guess from X’s responses what the ‘rule’ is. The rules can vary in
complexity, depending on the attainment of the children, though

for practical reasons the numbers need to be kept fairly small.
The activity may be reversed initially, to help low attainers into
this activity. Again, each child in a small group is given a musical
instrument. A function is announced by a leader, e.g. ADD three.
The leader then taps out a number of his choice under ten e.g. four.
He points to someone in the group, who must tap out four, plus
three more. The rest of the group count, and check that it is
correct.
Constructivist elements can come to the fore in discussions and
extensions with children after plenty of initial experience at the
practical level. These developments are more likely at Key Stage 2.
Once a particular rule is understood, the rule creator might be
encouraged to challenge others with suggestions such as: ‘Make
me give you seven’ (or any other suitable number), and the
challenge is met by producing the appropriate number of sounds
to stimulate the ‘output’ of seven mentioned to start with.
Perish the thought that anyone would cheat by changing their
rule when the guesses become uncomfortably successful. Yet
pupils could be asked to think about ways in which a potential
cheat could be required to record their rule. This recording would
be done by the potential cheat before processing other pupils’
numbers so that they could guess the rule in question. Probably
simple use of basic operators…(+4) (×2+3) might suffice. Such
representations would correspond to primitive symbolic algebraic
sentences. The children would be making written records of
simple functions. Useful interchanges on the precedence of
operators might occur. It would be natural to operate on numbers
in the order from left to right in which the sentence was written.
‘Arithmetical’ calculators of the kind pupils would be likely to
encounter in the primary school do just that, whereas scientific
calculators behave otherwise. At Y5/6 level this might be explored
with some pupils. The sound stimulus at this stage is fading in
importance, and could become a positive nuisance if larger
numbers were needed. It should be abandoned when necessary.
‘Musical’ Versions of FIZZ-BUZZ

This is suitable for children who understand the idea of multiples
and factors, and are working on their tables. In its simplest form,
it should work with some Y2s, and in more advanced guise will
suit a range of Key Stage 2 pupils.
Two children, A and B are each supplied with an instrument, of

contrasting types. They are also each assigned a multiplication
table.
Suppose one child with a xylophone is given 2, and a second
child with a tambourine is given 3. A leader takes a drum, to ‘keep
the beat’. She sounds this slowly and regularly. The class begins
to count the drum beats, beginning with 1. As counting proceeds,
the ‘2’ child must look out for multiples of 2, and sound her
xylophone for each one, i.e. on 2, 4, 6…; similarly the ‘3’ child
must look out for multiples of 3 and bang her tambourine
accordingly. The same activity focusing on the same multiples
needs to be repeated several times, and children can then begin to
sense a kind of rhythm to the patterns created. Children may
previously have coloured in multiples of 2, and of 3 on 100
squares. These could be available initially for reference, as in
Figure 7.2.
Figure 7.2: Multiples of 2
Try a similar activity for other numbers, and/or three numbers.

Younger or less able children could try the activity concentrating
on one multiplication table only, at least to start with.
The obvious discussion points are numbers where more than

one instrument must be sounded. Children could predict from a
given point in the counting sequence when the next coincidence
would occur, and so on. Moves to stimulate children’s
‘construction’ might include inverting the activity so that numbers
which are not multiples of n are picked out by instruments. Or the
counting could be reversed. After plenty of practice, as was
indicated above, children become familiar with the rhythm of the
patterns created. At this stage, a child could listen with eyes
closed while instrumentalists pick up the pattern from an
arbitrary point…say 11. No counting would be done. After
continuing the pattern for a while, the listener could be invited to
guess from which number the instrumentalists had started.
Repeats would be necessary before intelligent guesses could be
made. Depending on which tables were being used, more than one
correct answer would be possible. In discussion, the various
possibilities could be explored.
Rhythm and Number

For Y2s and some lower attaining Y3s, Y4s (?) who have, or could
be helped to acquire a sense of rhythm. The activity would follow
very naturally on from work on repeating patterns described
above, and could help children to develop early ideas about
multiples.
First, children need to experience and to produce rhythm
patterns. For example, triple time…ONE two three, ONE two
three. Or quadruple time…ONE two three four, ONE two three
four. They could practise moving to such rhythms in the hall.
Perhaps a small group might produce the sounds on percussion.
Again, the percussion group must practise producing the rhythms.
Many children would need a number of brief rehearsals over a
period of several weeks before they were confident and competent.
A percussion group can then compose ‘tunes’ made from
complete bars. For example, working in triple time only using two
instruments, a bar might consist of a tambourine for the first beat,
and chime bars for second and third beats, thus:
TAMBOURINE CHIME CHIME
A‘master counter’ should be appointed to count the total number
of notes produced. Thus, e.g. when a tune in triple time gets
under way, the counter will say:
‘ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine TEN eleven twelve.’
for a ‘tune’ twelve notes long in triple time.
Obviously this task will be easier if the first beat in each bar is
emphasized and played with a distinctive instrument. Children
have to practise the rhythms and the counting so they can carry
them out in a coordinated fashion.
A group of children could then be asked to generate as many
tunes of differing lengths in triple time using complete bars as th
could think of. Total numbers of notes could be restricted to, say
36. They should record the total number of notes used in each
tune. Similar tasks can be given for duple time and quadruple
time. (While music sometimes is written with five beats in a bar,
this is not an ‘easy’ rhythm, and is not recommended.)
It may be appropriate to encourage children to devise a simple
notation for recording their ‘compositions’. This would help them
to keep track of the number of bars played, and links could then
be made with simple multiplications. Later, discuss with children
which numbers over four never represent the total numbers of
notes in ‘compositions’. (Another route into the idea of prime
numbers.)
Symmetrical Compositions
This activity should suit some Y5s and Y6s, and assumes a solid
grounding in mirror symmetry.
(a) Non-pitched version. Children armed with instruments create
a short tune of, say four or five notes, e.g.
DRUM DRUM chime bar triangle wood block
The ‘answering phrase’ is to be composed by another group, which
must precisely mirror the initial theme:
wood block triangle chime bar DRUM DRUM
The first half is then played, followed immediately by the second
half, to provide the symmetrical composition. Obviously the
teacher would introduce this gently, with a number of examples
using very short tunes.
Children might adopt some method of notation, and this would,
of course, reveal the symmetry in a visual fashion. Try not to
resort to this too soon. Encourage children to hear the symmetry
in the answering half. If necessary, introduce the principle with
very simple tunes…only two or three notes long.
In a development, note length could also be varied. One
advantage of this activity is that it shows up the problems with
the term ‘same’ when we tell children that a shape with line
symmetry is the ‘same’ each side of the line of symmetry. Arguably
if the tune is simply repeated we have the most obvious use of the
term ‘same’. An analogy would be a straightforward translation of
a plane shape. In the symmetry context, the meaning of ‘same’ is

enriched. The idea is that activities of the kind described here help
pupils to construct this richer meaning.
(b) Pitched version. Use tuned percussion…xylophone,
glockenspiel, chime bars. Activity basically as in (a). For example,
decide that the tune will employ a particular ‘low’ note, one of
‘middle’ pitch, and also one of ‘high’ pitch. The first half of a ‘tune’
might consist of:
LOW LOW HIGH MIDDLE HIGH
Hence the second half must be:
HIGH MIDDLE HIGH LOW LOW
Again, children might be encouraged to record their ‘compositions’
using some form of notation.
Key Stage 2 children who can read music could record the
pitched version in traditional form. More able children could work
more carefully on the melodic aspect of each half, and be
encouraged to discover melodies which sound pleasing ‘either way
round’. (J.S.Bach experimented with devices of this kind, e.g. in
‘The Art of Fugue.’)
Further Activities
Slippery Slope Game (Adapted from Richard Skemp)

You need. ‘Slippery slope’ board as shown in Figure 7.3. Three
pairs of tokens, e.g. two blues, two reds, two greens. ‘Auditory
dice’ from computer or tape recorder.
The board represents steps up a hillside. Steps 11, 12 and 13
are missing. Here there is a slippery slope, and if a climber treads
here she slides back to a lower step as shown by the arrows. The
object is to reach the top.
Each player manages two ‘climbers’. Players in turn count a
group of pips from the sound dice, and move one of their climbers
that number of steps up. They begin at START, which corresponds
to zero. A climber may not move up to a step which is already
occupied. Overtaking is allowed.
Players may choose not to move. However, if a climber has been
touched, it must be moved. If a climber is touched, and the move
would take her to an occupied step, she must return to the start.
The exact number must be thrown to finish.
(The use of a ‘sound dice’ means that children do not have a
visible die in front of them to check and recheck the number they
are entitled to move. Perhaps each player could be encouraged to
Figure 7.3: Slippery Slope Game (Skemp, 1989)
count and check the ‘pips’ for the person whose turn it is, and to
keep a running record of numbers as they come up in sounds.)
Skemp would not talk in constructivist terms; nevertheless, the
game is designed to force children to think mentally about where
on the number line certain moves would take them. They are
discouraged from touching a ‘climber’ and moving until they have
properly thought through all the moves. Interestingly this is in
effect extending the constructivist idea explored comprehensively
elsewhere in this book. It is now being taken to include some
types of imaginative efforts, which may assist the learner to build
and invent new structures on the basis of what she already knows.
Stepping Stone Game (Loosely related to an idea by

Richard Skemp)
You need: ‘Stepping Stone’ board as shown in Figure 7.4. Three
tokens. ‘Auditory dice’ from computer or tape recorder.
Rules: (these have been changed from Skemp’s in one or two
important respects).
A game for 2 or 3 players. Probably Y1.
Figure 7.4: Stepping Stone Game
Players take turns to use the sound dice. They begin with their
tokens on the bank, which represents zero. They move the
number of stones indicated by their group of pips. BUT, they may
choose whether to go (but once they have touched their player, or
the board, they must move). If a player’s move takes him to the
same stone as another player, he knocks them into the stream,
and they return to the start. Stone 5 is wobbly. Any player who
lands on it falls in the stream and returns to the bank. The
‘constructivist’ principle here again is the peculiar framing of the
rules, which force players to construct a number line in their
heads so to speak before finally committing themselves to a move.
(The use of a ‘sound dice’ means that children do not have a
visible die in front of them to check and re-check the number they
are entitled to move. Perhaps each player could be encouraged to
count and check the ‘pips’ for the person whose turn it is, and to
keep a running record of numbers as they come up in sounds.
Young children might make tally marks for each pip heard.)
It would be important for the teacher to hold short discussions
with players once they were familiar with the basic rules. During a
game, the children could be encouraged to think out loud about
where their dice throw would take them were they to move, and
whether in consequence they actually wish to move.
Ways of Making Nine

For individual children, or pairs. Y1, Y2 and some low achieving
juniors. You need: a tape or computer programme to produce many
examples of ‘making nine’ in different ways using contrasting
sounds, e.g.:
3 high sounds, 6 low sounds.

1 high sound, 8 low sounds,
etc.
Each way of making nine would separated from the next on a tape
by a clear space.
Children might have accompanying worksheets. They could
keep a tally of the high sounds heard, and of the low sounds.
Some might be at a stage where they could appropriately be asked
to complete a relevant addition sentence in symbol form.
On some occasions the child will hear NO high sounds, and
nine low sounds, in which case they should be writing:
Similarly they may hear nine high sounds followed by NO low

sounds, in which case they should end up writing:
Obviously if this was felt to be too difficult for given pupils, the
‘zero options’ could be omitted from the tape sequence.
The worksheet method of recording is far from exciting. Children
instead might be encouraged to build a tower from bricks, with a
‘high’ place and a ‘low’ place on which figures could be stood. They
could be asked to count out nine figures at the start. These figures
could be placed high on the tower for a high sound, and low down
for a low sound, etc.
In a given period of time, it might well be that not all the
combinations for making nine would come up. Children could be
encouraged to think of the remaining possibilities. In order that

they begin to pick up on the idea of exhausting the possibilities,
referred to by Woodhouse in chapter 4, some kind of systematic
recording might be suggested if they are capable of working at this
level.
8
Children Drawing
Jennifer Buckham
Introduction
Since it is not generally appreciated that mathematics is

embedded within art, it does seem worthwhile to explicate
and highlight these aspects. In doing so we may not only
deepen our understanding of mathematics, but also heighten
our perception of art (Matthews, 1991).
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the relationship between

mathematics and art, highlighting in particular the potentially rich
opportunities that may arise in conversations between teachers
and children in response to children’s drawing activity. Drawing is
one of the major and earliest systems which children use to
represent the environment, objects, persons and events, both
spontaneously and as a result of requests from teachers, other
adults and children (Smith, 1983; Matthews, 1988).
In line with other arguments in this book it can be suggested
that children’s drawings not only represent their knowledge and
experience . but that drawing enables children to develop or
construct further concepts (Athey, 1990). It is vital, therefore, that
teachers recognize and are able to respond, not only to the
characteristics of children’s drawings but also to the social,
cultural and contextual features that may have influenced the
drawing performance, in all its aspects including the mathematical
dimensions (Buckham, 1994). Teachers will benefit from
understanding the different sorts of strategies and representations
children are using, so that their conversations with children not
only make sense to children but enable children to reflect on what
they have done. We have argued elsewhere that the role of the
teacher is crucial to constructivism. Teachers’ interventions about
children’s drawings, without being interference, can occur during
or after the process. Teachers can also request particular

drawings in the expectation that they will include mathematical
concepts for discussion.
It needs to be clear that the position taken up about art and
mathematics is the same as that suggested in chapter 3 about
drama and mathematics. Mathematics must not spoil or drive
either art or drama. Rather we look to see what mathematical
opportunities arise in drama or art and capitalize on them when
they do so. This chapter uses examples of children’s drawings to
identify mathematical dimensions, particularly those of shape,
space and time and discusses how teachers can respond.
The Nature of Children’s Drawings

The nature of young children’s drawings has been discussed
extensively (Golomb, 1992; Wolf and Perry, 1988). To summarize
some of the more important mathematical features that appear in
children’s drawings, three examples drawn by four-year-old pre-
school children are illustrated in Figures 8.1b, 8.1c and 8.1d. Part
of the environment in which they were drawing had been set up as
a forest. This environment was one which was thought might be
represented in many of the children’s activities, which included
painting, drawing and three dimensional work.
All drawings and paintings are an arrangement of lines, shapes
and colour on a flat surface. However, children have different
graphic means with which to make designs or representations of
objects and events according to their age and experience. Three
and four-year-old children represent the attributes that they feel
are necessary and important within a drawing or painting.
Characteristics of a visual scene may match numbers of objects,
enclosure and expressive qualities but may omit certain ‘features
of shape although children can and do use a variety of shapes in
their drawings (Smith, 1992). In Figure 8.1c, Daniel has drawn an
illustration at the base of his page (himself). He has used an
enclosed shape to represent himself and he has used extended
lines with small circular shapes at the ends to represent his legs
and feet. What he has drawn is sufficient for his purposes but he
has not matched the actual shapes which make up the various
parts of a person. Similarly he has matched the number and
position but not the shape of the butterflies found in the forest’
set up in the classroom. Their relative positions seem more
important to him than relative size or shape. The enclosed circular
shape at the very top of the paper is a small toy tiger; one of a
number hidden in the forest. This tiger was placed high up on a
CHILDREN DRAWING 117
piece of furniture, covered with fabric onto which butterflies and

other insects had been attached. Daniel’s drawing led to a lively
discussion of where he had spotted the tiger, whether he had been
able to reach up to it and how it had been rescued. In chapter 9
the use of spatial language will be discussed and one item is the
situation where children can deal with the words ‘higher up’.
Figure 8.1b shows a student teacher talking to another child
who had explored the forest area. This environment had enabled
the children to have a wide range of visual, tactile and spatial
experiences in the process of a dramatic situation, that of helping
a mother tiger find cubs lost in the forest. The children had to
crawl through vegetation to an enclosed play space via a narrow
entrance. The student anticipated that the enclosure Rachel was
painting was either the forest, or a papier mâché mountain that
was in the forest or even the cave opening in the mountain where
one baby tiger had been found. Much to her surprise the child
announced that it was a tunnel for the train she was going to paint.
Through discussion it emerged that as Rachel crawled through the
forest, she said, it was just like going into the tunnel in the
London Underground which she had just done.
The forest environment had a patterned cloth on the ground,
strewn with leaves, feathers, pebbles and various items which
could be brought back from the forest itself. The children spent
much time looking down while they were moving or crawling
around. Michelle’s response combined painting as well as printing
with three or four fingers dipped into paint. She had seen the tiger’s
footprints through the leaves in the forest, she said as she walked
her fingers around the page describing a path which was
beginning to look like a spiral (Figure 8.1d). In these three
examples (8.1b, c and d) some of the important visual-spatial
characteristics of the environment have been represented and in
the last example, gestural movement, one of the earliest features of
babies’ mark making is also taking the form of an early map (Wolf
et al., 1988; Matthews, 1988).
These and other drawings produced after the drama session
allowed the student teachers involved to make very specific links
between what the children had drawn and what prompted the
drawings. The range of salient features the children represented
were extensive even though the graphic means they had at their
disposal would appear to be limited. The mathematical
understandings the children were encoding in their drawings
needed to be highlighted in discussion with an adult. However,
what was particularly significant in this session was the difficulty
student teachers had in adjusting their expectations of what
Figure 8.1
young children’s drawings might show as well as what was

missing.
As has been argued elsewhere (Buckham, 1994), unless
teachers have a real understanding of children’s drawing they will
miss the significance of what it does present. Even more
significantly, I would argue, teachers may miss the significance of
what a drawing might present, given an appropriate context.
Figure 8.2a is an example which highlights this argument. A six
year old had made this drawing, requested by the teacher, in
terms that identify the factual answer: my class teacher, my friend
and my teddy (it was a giant teddy) are all taller than me and my
pencil and my pencil sharpener are shorter than me. But drawing
allows the possibility of considering scale and proportion visually,
and the three illustrations and two objects in her drawing,
although carefully constructed, bear little size relation to each
other or the referent—herself. But is there any reason why they
should? Mathematically the question is limited in its objective.
Having satisfied that objective the child was praised for the
amount of detail in the drawing especially the portrait of the class
teacher (left hand illustration). Is this a valid way of finding out
about children’s emerging understanding of comparative
measurement?
Fortunately, it is possible to look at a whole range of drawings
done by this same child, both before and after Figure 8.2a, to
discover some valuable features which appear to be of far greater
mathematical significance than those embedded (or not) in this
longer than, shorter than’ drawing1. It might be noted that these
sorts of drawings are very common in commercial schemes and
appear to be of dubious mathematical value. Wolf and Perry (1988),
amongst others, point to the fact that children between the ages of
five and seven are beginning to construct drawing systems in
addition to the ones they have developed, which already include
rules about relative size. These new systems require the
representation of objects as they are situated in a larger space.
The Importance of Children’s Drawing Systems

There is a complex interplay of forces influencing the forms of
images which children use. In selecting two drawings made six
months earlier than Figure 8.2a, but within days of each other, it
is possible to see two very different spatial settings in Figures
8.2b and c. The arrangements are determined by the story
contexts in which the drawings were done. The drawing
(Figure 8.2c) of the very tiny princess on the castle battlements,
‘too far away’ to be caught by the king, is in fact untypical for the
child, in terms of the proportion of illustrations to setting and the
location of the setting within the picture frame. The new emphasis
on scale and proportion has been inspired by the idea behind the
drawing.
On the other hand, the characters in Figure 8.2b bear no
particular spatial relation to the castle, except of being inside it.
The focus of this drawing is similar to that of Figure 8.2a in its
detail. It has clearly differentiated crowns and clothing but most
important is the meaning of the facial expressions of the prince
and princess. The bear’s face has no particular expression, but
the slight space between him and the princess and the
overlapping of the princess and the prince could appear to suggest
an expressive tension; the bear almost appears to be dragging the
princess away from the hapless prince. These two drawings
underline one of the important characteristics of drawing itself
and that is the way it combines objective and expressive modes of
thinking.
Objective and expressive modes of thinking need to be
appreciated when evaluating children’s drawings and the extent to
which they may indicate some awareness of, for example,
comparative measurement or proportion. The drawing of Tom and
Jerry, Figure 8.2d was carried out three months earlier than
Figure 8.2a. This drawing is also untypical, amongst many
drawings done at that time, yet it appeared in a classroom
situation no different from any other that term. It appears to
indicate an out of classroom experience which, for whatever
reason, had been vividly recalled. The framing of the Tom and
Jerry scene, by the edges of the page and the consequent cropping
of the lady just above the waist are sophisticated procedures that
suggest that they have been inspired by conventions common to
film, television and comics (Wilson, Hurwitz and Wilson, 1987).
The depiction of Tom’s owner calls for an indication of
comparative size but the particular event being imagined has
prompted an awareness of distance and position which can be
described both spatially and expressively. Figure 8.2d is also an
example of the way drawing can depict a particular moment in time
but also suggests movement and duration of time. In cinematic
terms the single frame or still image is never seen in isolation and
the construction of this drawing presupposes the time before and
the action which is taking place and is continuing into the future.
Within the image itself, movement is suggested by the multiple
lines of the arms of the lady holding Tom and other observable
Figure 8.2
Figure 8.3
features of the drawn image. This sense of movement is an illusory

one (Werner and Kaplan, 1963) but compelling none the less.
Having looked at drawings done before the mathematics lesson,
Figure 8.2a, it is instructive to look at one done at home at the
same time (Figure 8.3). This drawing shows a section of a house
with its sole occupant (a man) in the sitting room downstairs. In
this large-scale complex drawing the child has set herself the task
of not just describing the various items of furniture in each room,
but the relative size of each. She has even differentiated between
the light fittings in each room which range from a medium-sized
ceiling fitting in the kitchen to large paper lanterns in two upstairs

rooms and a giant chandelier in the sitting room. This drawing
also shows a range of strategies which she had devised for
showing that objects are three dimensional. Children’s drawings
are frequently criticized as being poor representations of the three
dimensional world because:
It is commonly thought that a representation is an attempt to

reproduce the image that enters the eye, but this is a
misunderstanding. It would be closer to the truth to say that
graphic representation is a process of selecting from our
visual and nonvisual knowledge, features of objects and
making a match between these and visual-graphic properties
of the materials we are working with (Smith, 1983).
I have described the house as a section rather than a view or Xray

picture, as such drawings are sometimes mistakenly called. As the
statement above suggests, making a match between visual and
nonvisual knowledge and the graphic properties and means
available, allows for the generation of a variety of possible drawing
systems. Also, there is no reason why several systems should not
be employed in the same drawing. At the stage where children are
still combining topological1 and emerging projective systems, to
speak of a view, implying a single (X-ray) viewpoint, is not really
appropriate. Throughout this chapter, examples of topological and
projective geometry are in evidence and there are very few
instances of children employing aspects of the system known as
‘perspective’. The term perspective is used very widely in a general
sense to describe any drawing that attempts to show depth or to be
realistic in any way. Perspective has been usefully separated from
this general meaning by (Dubery and Willats, 1983) and others’
use of the notion of topological and projective drawing systems to
describe the rules that quite separate systems employ. Lack of
familiarity with the rules that do govern identifiable drawing
systems that children generate and how successfully children use
them, has frequently led to undervaluation of children’s
mathematical thinking. A further aspect that is of particular
importance in any discussion of the way children employ drawing
systems as they get older is that of the development of a drawing
repertoire. There has been, traditionally, a somewhat narrow view
of drawing development (Wolf and Perry, 1988).
The drawing of a man in his house, Figure 8.3, has been seen
by many adults and without careful looking and sometimes only
after prompting, it appears that many have difficulty in
recognizing the cooker in the left handside, lower part of the

drawing. It is frequently mistaken for a stacking stereo and apart
from contextual reasons, this is usually because of the way it is
drawn. However, the system used to represent the cooker is an
identifiable one and its rules require the front and top faces of
objects to be shown one above the other in a vertical arrangement.
Dubery and Willats (1983) describe this system as Vertical oblique
projection’ and suggest that rather than showing a net
(although this drawn cooker has striking similarities to this
concept) this is in fact a form of projection assuming a high
viewpoint some distance away (see also Willats, 1985 and 1992).
Drawing systems which are closer to the concept of a net are
often termed fold out’ and the resulting drawn objects or scenes
need to be looked at carefully to identify the various orientations
involved. This topological process is often seen alongside vertical
projection and there are several examples of both in a drawing
made by the same child, Figure 8.9 when she was five (Buckham,
1994).
There are a number of items in the house, Figure 8.3, which are
constructed in a similar way to the cooker, including the sofa, a
small table and a large chair in the sitting room. In other places
objects are drawn as if viewed from the side and in the bathroom
(top right) a toothbrush holder and a washbasin are lined up
against the drawn edge on the right, suggesting a side wall
boundary. Yet another system is used to show the space relations
between the man and the large chair. The term occlusion is used
to describe the way one object comes in front of another and
partially or wholly obscures it. This child had in fact used this
device intermittently from a very early age, although the system
generally occurs infrequently in very young children’s drawing
(Athey, 1991).
On the small table beside the man there is a framed
photograph. Although she wanted to show that it was on the table
she has shown it separately, as a small rectangle, above the larger
rectangle that denotes the table top. Rather than draw it enclosed
within the table top, or with even more difficulty, half in the table
top and half above, she has chosen to draw it separately. In doing
this she gives less ambiguous information about space relations
and this is quite consistent with findings reported by Willats
(1992), Cox (1991) and others. This principle is also in operation
in the drawing of the vases of flowers both on the kitchen table
and on the table in the bedroom (upper left hand part of the
drawing) The drawn lines of the surface areas of the two tables
have been obscured by heavy oil pastel colouring and so the

device is less obvious.
One part of the picture which excites comment from many
adults is the way that the bed appears to be shown by a method
something akin to the rules of perspective. There is a suggestion,
in the drawing, that the vertical lines enclosed by the curved ends
of the bed are joined at the base at various points along two
imaginary converging diagonal lines. This illusion is heightened by
the sloping lines of the adjacent bookcase. This may be more of an
accident than deliberate construction but it is often through
chance occurrences that new learning can take place. Certainly
discussion of such features may have a significant impact on older
children or children who are at a point when they are ready to
consolidate previous tentative experiments in the same area. In
this child’s case, it is possible to see such tentative moves (as in
Figure 8.4a). It was not until her final year in primary school that
she, like many other children of that age, occasionally attempted
to use converging rather than parallel lines.
Work from Observation, Memory, Imagination

and Work about Time
The selection, arrangement and descriptions of items in
Figure 8.4a can be seen in relation to the actual objects the child
was drawing: Figure 8.4b. Even when children work from close
observation, and this was an extremely rare event in this
particular child’s experience, they are not replicating the scene in
front of them like cameras, but so often they are judged as if they
were. Drawing from a fixed point is an extremely narrow task as it
admits no deviation or movement. Much frustration could be
avoided if drawing from observation was seen as matching
objectively the most appropriate features of an object or scene
whilst at the same time matching aesthetically the very essence of
what is being depicted: its sensory and expressive characteristics
(Smith, 1992). The drawing of the objects in Figure 8.4a is a good
example of how young children’s graphic means naturally suggest
movement and a comparison with the rather static character of
the group of objects she chose to draw. Figure 8.4b (a
reconstruction of the items selected from what was a very crowded
corner of a room) shows this clearly.
The fact that this six year old chose to draw this group of
objects in the first place can be explained in various ways. One of
them, undoubtedly, was linked to the fact that she had visited an
art exhibition a few hours earlier and had been captivated by the
experience. During the course of the afternoon, she had drawn

from memory, a female illustration she had admired as a
sculpture in the exhibition. She had also drawn from memory a
building in Central London. Prior to this observational drawing
(Figure 8.4a) she had drawn an imaginary scene of Adam and Eve,
with two animals in the Garden of Eden. This momentum in
drawing activity culminated in her choosing a rather challenging
and unfamiliar task. I would suggest that the examples of artists’
work, she had seen, had provided a powerful range of models for
her to emulate in her own production. I would also link her choice
of objects to an interest she often showed in her work: that of
shape and space. By comparing the drawing (Figure 8.4a) with the
photograph 0f the reconstruction (Figure 8.4b) the shape and
space aspects of the scene she has represented become quite
clear.
She has described the relation between the horizontal mat on the
desk and the vertical and horizontal lines of the angle-poise lamp.
She has also located the framed print and shown its top edge as a
diagonal line. She has shown how an ornamental bird has been
partially occluded by this frame. Only the bird’s head and beak
protrude and a leg pokes down onto the mat below. The bird and
small toy illustration hanging from the lamp in the drawing are
longer in scale than the real objects. This may be because these
objects were of special interest to her. However, children, like
adult artists, are not only responding to the items they are
observing but also to the marks they are making on the paper.
The drawing must be satisfactory, to the drawer, in itself as well
as in the way it represents its referent. The sort of experience this
child had already had as a perceiver of art earlier in the afternoon
is similar to the experience of looking at her own work and making
decision about this (Wolf, 1989). The extent, in particular, to
which children have internalized certain mathematical
understandings plays a crucial role at this stage.
The fact that both this drawing (Figure 8.4a) and the one
discussed previously, (Figure 8.3) were made by the same child
outside school, and the extent to which they show more
mathematically significant int understanding than any drawing
task completed at school in that a suggests two things. Firstly, as
Art in the National Curriculum (DES, 1992) has suggested in the
non-statutory guidance, evidence of children’s work out of school
could provide a useful contribution towards any assessment of
children’s achievements. Given the nature of children’s drawings,
these contributions could apply to a range of subjects in the
curriculum, including mathematics. Secondly the substantial
Figure 8.4
evidence that children often create art work out of school in a way
which is qualitatively different from much ‘school art’ (Taylor,
1986; Wilson, 1992) requires that attention is paid to the factors
that contribute to these differences. A major factor is the role that
the work of adult artists plays in children’s work. Wolf (1989)
describes the sort of learning which takes place through the
interaction of the various acts of making and perceiving art as
‘conversation’ and it is the sort of conversation which has already
been referred to in the discussion on Figure 8.4a. The role of the
teacher in such ‘conversations’ as suggested earlier, is an
important one. The drawing of Tom and Jerry (Figure 8.2d) whilst
illustrating a piece of writing, also provides the sort of opportunity
for discussion that can highlight culturally significant phenomena
in art and mathematics. This is in much the same way that
teachers might use Egyptian wall painting to discuss the
culturally derived mathematical rules that governed their artistic
design.
As Wilson and Ligtvoet (1992), Court (1992) and Varkalis (1992)
have shown in such diverse countries as modern Egypt, Japan,
Holland, Italy, Kenya and the United Kingdom, culturally specific
factors play a very significant role in understanding children’s art
and the mathematical implications of their findings are equally
important, not least for teachers. Introducing children to the work
of artists from a variety of cultures may also be a way of confirming,
both to children and their teachers, that many of the drawing
systems children construct are of value in themselves. They are
not simply steps on the way to a single ‘end point’ of drawing
development, to be forgotten or devalued at a later date
(Matthews, 1991).
Children do continue to use a whole range of systems unless
they are dissuaded from doing so. Unfortunately, this is very often
the case and some of the factors which may be contributory are
adult views of those aspects of art and mathematics discussed so
far.
In order to broaden concepts of shape and space in drawings a
consideration of both of these and how they include time is
relevant. Figure 8.4c is a drawing that deserves careful
consideration, in this respect, as it is a wonderful example of the
ease with which young children may create their own meanings,
through drawing, both in response to a teacher’s task and by
moving beyond it.
Lee and his year-one class had been making bread with their
student teacher. She asked them to record in visual form the
sequence in which they had carried out the activities. The
drawings were to form part of a class book so with each child’s

contribution she was able to cover virtually every aspect of the
experience the children had. By getting the children to divide their
page into four she intended them to show a time sequence, but as
a result of giving the children a plain sheet of paper, some
children drew a grid rather than folding their paper into four and
Lee allowed space for writing below his grid. At first sight this
drawing might appear like Figure 8.3, showing four separate
rooms in a house, but closer inspection reveals the same
arrangement repeated in boxes 1, 2, 3 and then the introduction of
the oven, with diagonal wavy lines indicating heat and the
absence of illustrations makes box 4 quite different. What
sequence in the baking process is intended by steps 1–3 is
difficult to read from the drawing. However, what this drawing
goes on to show constitutes a difficult concept for children to
grasp fully and that is the notion of time as continuous.
Lee shows an illustration outside the framework of the required
task, carrying out an activity related to the timescale of box 4: a
child is washing his hands while the bread is baking. The
positioning of this illustration at the end of a pathway leading from
the baking scene into a space where a notional fifth sequence
would have been drawn is an interesting one and may indicate the
spatial dimension that an initial glimpse of the drawing suggested
(some of the children left the classroom to wash their hands in the
cloakroom after the session and this may be reflected in this
detail). Amongst other things the element of simultaneous events
in time could have been discussed with Lee.
The drawings of birds in the classroom from close observation
(Figures 8.5a and b) highlight dimensions of time and space and
their interdependence rather poignantly. Sometimes it is possible
to miss some of the more subtle qualities in children’s drawings
without careful consideration. In Figure 8.5a the strong overall
geometric design and the grid-like structure of the bird’s cage is
immediately striking. By contrast the drawing of the same subject
by another child (Figure 8.5b) may be considered less bold in
structure and arrangement and less immediate but more subtle in
its visual impact. The structure of the cage appears a little
lopsided and the white window frame is rather thick in relation to
the size of the individual panes, but the detail is rather intriguing.
If one considers the two drawings in terms of how much space
they suggest or how much movement is conjured up even more
differences are evident. The space around the cage in Figure 8.5a,
is divided into three sections and coloured in, creating a more
abstract surround than in Figure 8.5b where the classroom space
is suggested much more specifically. The broken lines of the

horizontal bars of the cage in Figure 8.5b, as well as the vigorous
marks of the chalks and charcoal, all suggest a sense of
movement. Further areas like the strong arc diagonally over the
cage heighten this impression. This arc is also a strong linking
device which draws attention to the content of the scene. Wild
birds hover in flight at the classroom window looking in, whilst the
budgies sit in their cage. This imaginative situation heightens
awareness of spatial and temporal dimensions in a way that could
be deepened through discussion and can be beneficial from both a
mathematical and art perspective. Spending some time looking at
this drawing and then returning to look at Figure 8.5a may result
in a different perception of the previous scene; the scale of the
birds may suggest they are cramped and constrained by their cage
space. This underlines the delicate balance any form of
assessment of drawing requires between observable, quantifiable
facts and more expressive features. One way of exploring these is
in discussion when further dimensions of the child’s intentions,
other perceptions and links with similar features in the work of
other artists may be appropriate.
Recording from observation aspects of the school environment is
frequently carried out to develop children’s drawing skills and a
particularly rewarding area may be the school hall with PE
equipment as a focus of interest. Figure 8.6 is a drawing based on
observation of the hall during a PE lesson but this is not solely a
drawing from observation. It is an illustration of a poem that each
child in the class had written about an aspect of PE and in this
child’s case, she had written about an unruly class, a teacher not
quite in control, the momentary calm that had resulted from the
head’s appearance and then the return to chaos. As a unit of time
a PE lesson is clearly defined and it is interesting that the child
has included part of the clock on the wall, cut off by the left hand
edge of the paper. The pupils are placed at various points in the
drawing like counters on a snakes and ladders board and
throughout there is a tension between moving and still
illustrations, stable and precarious poses and vertical, horizontal
and diagonal lines.
The passage of time is described by two visual conventions. The
first is a long curly line linking the boy on the low bench (left hand
side with one leg stretched out behind) and the teacher who is
standing on the floor just off centre with a long ‘Help’ balloon
coming out of her mouth. She has been hit by a ball or bean bag
that Daniel has just thrown and the curly line describes its flight
path. This comic and cartoon device along with the speech
Figure 8.5
bubbles, names and arrows is not a particularly strong visual

feature but the second device is and at the same time has links
with cinematic devices mentioned earlier in connection with the
Tom and Jerry drawing. The second convention consists of placing
similar items in slightly different positions to suggest movement.
The way the ropes have been drawn suggests three stages of their
momentum, diminishing in swing from left to right. This device
can be effective in exploring more complex sequences of
movement in space as numerous artists have explored,
particularly since the advent of photography and cinematography.
Conclusion
The previous drawings—Figures 8.4c, 8.5a, 8.5b and 8.6—have
opened up discussion of some of the different functions that
drawing can have and within those drawings sensory
characteristics such as motion and duration have been
considered. As children get older they gain an increasing
‘repertoire’ of drawing systems amongst which to choose. The
rules which govern each system also relate to when they might be
appropriate. A drawing that uses the edge of the drawing paper
like a co-ordinate frame (Figure 8.6) differs in other important
respects from Figure 8.7a or Figure 8.7b but all three depend on
the increasing depth of knowledge about measurement and scale
that children acquire as they go through school. Figure 8.7a,
although carried out a little earlier than Figure 8.6 is by the same
child. Here, she is concerned to convey a specific scale-related
image of her drawing of a girl in a city scene. In the PE picture, it
is less important to her that the children should be consistently in
scale with each other, the teacher and the surroundings, than
that they should be carefully spaced and located at many levels in
the drawing.
The girl is in Figure 8.7a is most certainly in scale with her
environment. As her confidence and stance suggest, she is very
much at home in the city. It is no coincidence that the child who did
the dra ing had been with her school to the National Gallery in
London and had been inspired by the discussion with teachers in
the gallery in front of a range of paintings including portraits.
They considered the relationships of individuals to their settings,
including some on a magnificent scale. The visual images that
scale and projection might add to the status of the people in the
portraits is reflected in Figure 8.7a and other drawings the child
did at the same time, mainly outside school.
Figure 8.6
There are three further drawings by this child made at around

the age of 11—Figures 8.7b, 8.8a, 8.8b and another—Figure 8.10
—by a boy the same age. Between them they show a range of
understate in and handling of scale, space and time that illustrate
some of the many different ways in which children may be
working, at this stage from their own repertoire. The boy who drew
the imaginary traffic drama Figure 8.10 discovered a completely
new dimension in drawing after he and other children in his class
had been studying aerial photographs. He combined scale, space
and time to produce a particularly satisfying and aesthetically
pleasing outcome. Although quite different in spatial
arrangement, Figures 8.8a and 8.8b indicate further explorations
in scale and proportion. Figure 8.8b shows the elongated and
slender illustration of one of the main characters in a story book
made at school. Her proportions have been inspired by studying
fashion drawings at home and applying their conventions to a
different context. That children should be confident enough to do
this is important as well as being an enriching experience.
Finally, Figures 8.9 and 8.10 give readers the opportunity to
look closely and identify for themselves features which have been
discussed throughout this chapter. There is a difference of six
years between these two children which illustrates that as
development occurs, drawing repertoire expands, many features
are retained and refined, and new ones are introduced while
others are left behind. I have argued that, as suggested in the
introduction, it is possible to deepen our understanding of both
mathematics and art through the study of children’s drawings and
children drawing.
Note
Topology is important to mathematics and geography as well as art.
It can be defined, mathematically, as a branch of geometry
concerned with properties of shape which remain the same even
when the shape itself is deformed. Thus a circle and a square are
topologically equivalent. A three-dimensional example might be
that a piece of plasticene could be moulded into either a cup or a
doughnut shape. The two would be topologically equivalent if the
hole—in the cup handle or the middle of the doughnut—were
retained. Topology, therefore is not concerned with measurement.
It is about a class of relationships such as how one shape is found
within another, closed and open shapes and the relationships
between spaces such as their insides and outsides or how they are
Figures 8.7 CHILDREN DRAWING 135
Figure 8.8
Figure 8.9
Figure 8.10
distributed. Primary children can use and understand certain

aspects of topology and need to do so because, although it is hard
to define it is an essential element in understanding space and
shape.
9
Mathematics Beyond the School
and a Summing Up
Deirdre Pettitt and Andrew Davis
Introduction
In chapter 2 we discussed the nature of mathematics, arguing,
amongst other things, that the subject should not be divorced from
‘human activities, interactions and rules’. The puzzling
combination of human invention and objectivity which we noted
exists in mathematics may have had the effect of causing it to be
seen as the exclusive property of mathematicians. These
mathematicians, we suggested, could be seen as delving deeper
and deeper into abstractions, separating them from a’majority of
lesser mortals’. Indeed, it is possible that a view such as this has
contributed to excusing a large number of otherwise educated
people from feeling inadequate, instead of being quite proud when
they announce that mathematics is a closed book to them. It does
not surprise us when such statements are made. We can also feel
it to be an unfortunate fact of life that from quite an early age
mathematics for many people is boring, incomprehensible,
useless, alarming or all of these. Mathematics teaching is
improving. We know too many skilled and devoted teachers at all
levels to doubt this. These teachers are, however, still faced with
an attitude to mathematics which does not help them. Perhaps we
need to be and ought to be surprised that educated people claim
to be totally ignorant about mathematics. We should be surprised
if they boasted of illiteracy. Perhaps the inevitability that many
people find mathematics boring, irrelevant and the like needs to
be challenged. Human minds presumably do not permit more
than a very few people to be polymaths. However, it is a great pity
that rather more people than necessary seem to be entirely cut off
from one substantial and fascinating body of human experience. At
least for practical purposes and to a reasonable level of
understanding we might aspire to the attitude that to be educated
involves feeling fairly comfortable about mathematics.
MATHEMATICS BEYOND THE SCHOOL AND A SUMMING UP 141
Most of the authors of this book have had many years of

experience of teaching how to teach mathematics to primary
education students. All of these students, currently, have GCSE
mathematics or an equivalent at Grade C or better. Even amongst
these able young people we find some who claim that their
success stems from rote learning and they are nervous about
teaching children. Similarly, skilled administrative staff of our
acquaintance, dealing with complex accounts, have told us that
they wanted to go further than they did in mathematics. These
people, and the students, often give the same explanation for
giving up on mathematics. This is, that at a certain point in their
schooling, they no longer understood the mathematics (which they
were often able to do successfully) nor did they understand what
it was for or what connection it had with everyday experience. We
can surmise that these able people had lost the ‘mental map’ of
relational understanding to which we referred in chapter 2. It
seems clear that well before the point at which these people lost
their way, and at various points in their school careers many
children also become baffled. Given the notorious ‘7 year Gap’
(Cockroft, 1984) found between some children entering secondary
school, losing your way occurs in the primary as well as the
secondary school. We are not concerned here with children who fail
in the secondary school where teachers are generally well qualified
to teach mathematics. However, a possible explanation for some
children’s discomfort with mathematics in the secondary school
might be considered by both secondary and primary teachers. It is
that when you are good at mathematics it can become difficult to
‘decenter’ (Donaldson, 1978) and to realize that what is obvious to
you can be very obscure to your pupils.
On the other hand it is the case that primary teachers need a
solid relational understanding of mathematics to a considerably
higher level than the ceilings of most primary school children. It is
hardly possible to help children to acquire ‘networks of
connections’ (Haylock and Cockburn, 1989), to see patterns and
solve problems, all of which are being argued for in this book, if
mathematics puzzles the teacher. The sorts of discussions we
have recommended can tax teachers’ knowledge. Teachers may
‘shut down’ if temporarily thrown by a child’s question. However,
teachers have the power and the ability to find out answers and as
McNamara (1994) points out, teachers often learn more about
mathematics by teaching it.
In chapter 4 Brian Woodhouse demonstrated how investigations
at an adult level can involve teachers in a clearer understanding
of constraints and variables. These, at ascending levels of
difficulty, enable teachers to develop and improve logical and

methodological strategies which, in due course lead to the
identification of proofs in the secondary school (and sometimes
earlier). In investigations, problem solving and discussion about
mathematics teachers as well as children may see patterns and
connections which either they had not been aware of or which, in
the case of teachers, had been forgotten or obscured over time.
So, we suggest that the sorts of mathematical experiences we have
recommended are within the grasp of teachers who, where
necessary, can re-construct their own subject knowledge.
We are recommending some changes to mathematics teaching—
mainly alongside and augmenting existing practice—in the
primary school to practitioners who are already overburdened.
Unlike others who exhort teachers to do better (and in the certain
knowledge that improving their teaching is the aim of primary
teachers) we have offered some practical advice. This may be
timely, in view of the focus on core subjects and the extra time
available to teachers on the implementation of the Dearing Report
(Dearing, 1994). However, we also need to make a case for what
we have suggested being worth the effort. It would not be, if only a
few children could benefit and those would rise to the top however
they were taught. There is a good deal of evidence, however, that
children have the propensity to be good at mathematics and we
turn to some of this evidence in the next section.
Learning Before Schooling

There will always be a wide variation in experience and attainment
of school children and the Reception class is no exception. Having
conceded this point we can examine some of the evidence about
the mathematics that children bring to school. Much of this
relates to number.
Extensive research now supports the view that children have

a strong rule-governed grasp of aspects of mathematics.
Gelman and Gallistell (1978) showed how children impose
patterns on their experience of counting. More recently
Carpenter et al. (1982) has shown that pre-schoolers can
successfully work out word problems in addition and
subtraction providing the quantities are small. My study
(Desforges and Desforges, 1980) demonstrated that four year
olds had developed a number-based notion of ‘fair’ sharing of
sweets and had a variety of strategies for dealing with
remainders. More recently Martin Hughes (1986) has
confirmed that youngsters can develop and use symbol

systems to represent small quantities (Desforges, 1989).
Commenting on these and other achievements of pre-schoolers,

Desforges (ibid.) suggests that ‘sufficient is known…for teachers to
be optimistic about what can be achieved…’ Over the past few
years and ongoing, research at the University of Durham—
hereinafter called the Durham Project—has amongst other things,
tested the mathematics which children bring to school (Aubrey,
1994 and forthcoming). The results of testing over 150 children’s
ability in number in the first few weeks in school or in nursery
schools have been consistent with the findings mentioned above.
To illustrate this we show in Tables 9.1 and 9.2 some of the
results of testing basic knowledge about number, particularly
counting, of 50 children in two different nursery schools. The tests
were administered towards the end of the summer term to
children who would enter Reception classes in the following
September. The mean age of the children was approximately 4
years 6 months. (An approximate figure is given because the
testing spanned about two months as each complete test took
about 3 hours.) The two nurseries were very different: ‘Arlington’
was attached to a primary school in an ex-mining village near
Durham and most children entered that school; ‘Beever Lane’ was
in a Durham town, not attached to a school and had a wide
variety of pupils who would disperse to many different schools in
September.
As the headings are brief a fuller explanation is needed. ‘Recite’
is the highest number children would count to, over two trials,
without omission, repetition or error. This gives a conservative
figure as many children went much further on one trial and almost
all of them said many more numbers, usually in the right order
but with omissions. For example, many were aware of the decade
system and would follow, say, 20 by 30, 40, 50, etc. You will
notice that given objects to count some children could go beyond
the number they were willing to recite. Alternatively, some could
recite to quite a high number but could not apply the skill to a
practical task. Overall, however, the majority of children could use
the numbers they could recite, at least within 10. That is they had
one:one correspondence, some principles of cardinality and some
of order irrelevance (it doesn’t matter in what order you count a
collection of objects, the cardinal number is the same).
These items (one:one correspondence, cardinality and order
irrelevance) are shown in columns 2–11. Children were asked to
count 3 objects in a line, 3 in a pile, 7 in a line, 7 in a circle, to
Table 9.1: Arlington Nursery School

Table 9.2: Beever Lane Nursery School

give the researcher 4 from 12 and 10 from 12 (columns 2–7).

Columns 8–11 show what happened when children were asked to
count 4 and then 6 objects from right to left and then 4 and 6
objects making the second object the first one they counted.
Column 12 shows the written numerals from 1–10 that each child
could name.
Only a small part of the data is included here, but this
illustrates the wide differences in attainment teachers in
Reception classes can expect. The data provided also suggest that
many children do know a lot about mathematics when they enter
Reception classes and this is not the whole story. We have not
included our evidence that when children have the basic counting
skills shown in the tables they can use them to do a lot more. For
example, if they could count with understanding to 10 they could
invariably tell us or show us that you need 5 more pence to make
3 pence up to 8 pence and conversely could deduct 4 pence to
reduce 7 pence to leave 3 pence. These tests involved giving a
panda the right money to buy an ice cream. They could also share
4 sweets between two bears and 9 sweets between 3 bears. They
were not thrown by sharing 5 sweets fairly between two bears,
mainly telling us to put the one over back in the box, although two
ate the one over, six gave it to another toy, two asked for another
sweet and two gave the more sophisticated answer that the sweet
should be halved. These last two were high counters (child No. 32
and child No. 47) but it is worth noting that one of the two who
asked for another sweet, which is also enterprising, was child No.
13 who could only count to two. Given the opportunity and the
situation children can surprise us by their invention. The Durham
Project (ibid), together with evidence from many sources, some of
which were indicated above, illustrate that children, given the
opportunity, are inventive and attempt, often successfully, to
impose meaning on their experience. Desforges (1986) discussing
children’s ‘inventive capacities’ demonstrated in studies conducted
by Piaget’s followers, for example Perret-Claremont (1980),
suggests that: ‘social exchanges were perceived to have provoked
conflicting thought. New ideas were enacted in response to these
intellectual demands’ (Desforges, 1989).
We shall return to the relationship between ‘intellectual
demands’ in a research project and classroom activities at the end
of this summary. Before that, we can examine certain other
mathematical achievements demonstrated in the study.
The Durham Project used Level 1 of Mathematics 5–16 (1992)
(which has subsequently been revised) as a ceiling for testing. This
meant that as well as number, other attainment targets were
addressed. Full details are forthcoming. However, taking the same

group of 50 nursery children whose achievements in number were
shown above, it may be of interest to show what these children
made of tests for the language of measurement, spatial language
(in, under, etc.) and sorting (data handling).
The Language of Measurement

Table 9.3 is rather negative in that it shows the error pattern, i.e.
the language of measurement that children did not, on this
occasion at least, know. There were 23 items in all, which were
implemented by children being asked to look at and, where
appropriate, handle the material provided. None of it was pictures.
Unsurprisingly, there was not all that much consistency of error.
One child who made six errors failed to respond correctly at items
3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 12 and one made three errors at items 10, 11 and
23. Children only had one chance to respond although questions
were clarified if it seemed necessary.
The positive aspect is the children’s success. Six children knew
all 23 words, fourteen children knew 22 words, six knew 21, three
knew 20, five knew 19, four knew 18, three knew 17, three knew
16, three knew 15, two knew 14 and the lowest score—13—was
achieved by two children.
Of interest to teachers may be those words which seem to cause
most problems and of course those which do not. Some of the
latter are hardly surprising, but it is interesting how few children
were troubled by ‘highest’. They can be confused between higher
and taller (do I become taller or higher than you if I stand on a
chair?) and later we shall see that it is a difficult spatial word.
Presumably children found it easy during the test because we had
(with great difficulty) constructed kites from coloured paper, which
‘flew’ at the end of thin sticks and one could be demonstrably seen
to be higher or lower or lowest when two or three were ‘flown’
together and kite flying is often within children’s experience.
Experience and ordinary speech may explain why ‘shortest
pencil’ and ‘shortest teddy’ caused many problems. As Haylock
and Cockburn (1989) point out it is more common to use the
positive or dominant form of measurement language; for example
taller not shorter, new not old, more not less. They suggest that
both need to be presented at once, i.e. if that is heavier that must
be lighter. Another possible explanation for difficulties with
‘shorter’ is that normal speech rarely refers to shortness except in
respect of people. We refer to tall buildings but not, normally, to
short buildings. As I have suggested elsewhere (Palmer and

Pettitt, 1993) it may be preferable to follow normal speech for this
Table 9.3: Beever Lane Nursery and Arlington Nursery (Error count when
children were asked, e.g. ‘Show me which doll is smaller given two dolls’.)
particular aspect of mathematics. Sometimes mathematical

language is different and has particular meanings. This is not the
case here. The language of measures becomes more specific and
precise but can still follow normal usage. We do not want children
to think that this mathematical world, that of comparative
language, is a new and different one.
The superlative also seems to present problems, more generally,
‘Biggest’ is easy, highest, heaviest and lightest are not too hard
but thinnest and thickest are quite difficult. Again, this probably
reflects how much these words are normally used. Overall,
however, these results suggest that we can be reasonably sure that
many children can deal confidently with comparative language. A
proviso we suggest is that they need to work with things they can
see and touch. The weight of an object is not easily established by
looking at pictures of see-saws. These children also constructed
some meanings as the tests proceeded. It is possible to work out a
pattern when similar language is being used across a range of
measuring terms.
Language about an imaginary situation was employed in the

next test to be described, with toys used to model an incident.
Spatial Language
We wanted to see if children could spontaneously use the
positional words: in/inside, under/underneath, next to/beside,
on, above/higher up and behind. (One word from these pairs was
acceptable and to avoid repetition we shall use the first word of
each pair to represent either in this account.) We wanted the
children to say the words themselves where possible and not just
to recognize them. To this end we set up a story. A mother sheep
had a naughty lamb who was always hiding. These toys and a box
were in front of the children. The mother sheep faced the children
and the lamb was behind her. The children had to help the
mother to find her lamb by telling her where it was. After pointing
a bit, children soon got the idea that the sheep could not see the
lamb and that they must speak to her. Of course we could not
ensure that children did not know words because they did not use
them. For example, above (or higher up) is heard less often than
‘in’ or ‘on’ and as we had expected this caused the most
difficulties. We therefore had a fall back position. If children ‘failed’
to use the word or words we were looking for we asked them to
put or hold the lamb in the appropriate position using the box
again. That is, we said ‘put the lamb behind the box’ using
whichever words the children had not supplied.
The results were as follows:
• Seven children used all six positional words spontaneously.

• Seventeen children did not use ‘above’ but were able to respond
correctly in the second test.
• Nine children did not use ‘next to’ or ‘above’ but were able to
respond correctly in the second test.
• Four children did not use ‘above’ or ‘behind’ but were able to
• Three children did not use ‘next to’, ‘above’ or ‘behind’ but were
able to respond correctly in the second test.
• Three children did not use ‘under’ or ‘above’ but were able to
• Four children did not use the following words:
(a) ‘under’, ‘next to’, ‘on’, ‘above’,

(b) ‘under’, ‘next to’, ‘above’, ‘behind’,
(c) ‘next to’, ‘above’, ‘behind’,
(d) ‘next to’, ‘on’, ‘above’,

but all of them could respond correctly in the second test.
Only three children failed to attain 100 per cent of either use or
recognition of a positional word and in each case it was ‘above’
which foiled them. Given the story situation, the children gave an
impressive demonstration of their knowledge of spatial language.
Is There Any Relationship Between the Durham Project,

Classroom Practice and the Constructivist Theme of this Book?
As we freely admit, and shall discuss later, teachers do not have

the time or opportunity to talk and interact with individual
children for hours at a time. However, the Durham Project may
have points of interest for teaching. Where teachers get the chance
to talk with individuals or groups, which are seized upon where
possible, our experience may be helpful. We learned a lot about
how children respond eagerly to an interested adult. Their
attention span was remarkably long. Clearly, we were not teaching
but, as we have hinted, being asked questions or set problems
encourages children to think. They were also given time to do so.
They needed to have some knowledge about the problems they
were being set but some of them were likely to have been
presented in a new form. This meant that the children were
constructing new slants on existing concepts.
Many of our tests could be termed as constructivist in nature. We
have already mentioned the story format of the test for spatial
language. Throughout we used toy panda who could be told the
answers (especially as he was not very clever and needed help from
the children). Our intention was to make the situation one with
which children were familiar by using many toys that they would
have at home or in the nursery. In effect we were negotiating with
each child a series of incidents where the props and the stories put
the tests into a familiar context.
Sorting was one context children were very familiar with. This
related to Attainment Target 5 of Mathematics 5–16 (Data
Handling), where children are required to be able to sort using
consistent criteria. The request to sort a collection of tiny sorting
toys—cars, lorries, cats, dogs, boats—of different colours and sizes
threw none of the children. Sorting is done in nurseries but our
experience as parents indicated that young children classify all
the time before coming to school. They classify in order to learn
language and when they play they sort and classify their toys using
very fine distinctions. We were not surprised, therefore, that all
the children in the study could sort and explain their reasons for
their choices. The majority sorted the toys by type though a few
used colour. Some did both, usually starting with type and then
making sub-sets of colour. Often children who sorted by type
added location as a criterion—the horses in the field, the boats in
the water and so on. Two children would only sort the toys which
would stand up. If we had been teaching we could have developed
this idea profitably. That is, an important notion in data handling
is to show that a relationship does not exist. ‘These toys stand up
but those do not’ would have been an extension of the children’s
thinking worth promoting.
We suggest that children, almost without exception, can sort
objects and say why or show why they have used their criteria.
Perhaps the lesson we draw is that criteria should be extended.
Colour, size and shape may be too limiting when there are so
many variables which could be employed, such as texture, type,
use, material and so on, and as we have indicated above, the
introduction of the negative aspect. We did not provide a reason for
the sorting we asked the children to do as we wanted an open
ended response. However, in the classroom purposes might be
easy to think of.
It may be appropriate to explain here why the Durham Project
did not explore ‘pre-number’ activities. (Sorting was not regarded
as such an activity but as early data handling.) This was because
we have become convinced that number concepts are developed
by counting objects of all kinds in a variety of ways and not by
sorting, ordering and matching. That is, we question the value of
these activities when they are deployed by drawing lines between
drawings of identical objects or matching pairs or by colouring
‘sets’ of pictures or drawing circles round pictures of identical
objects. Drawing lines to ‘match’ identical objects’ is expected to
teach children one:one correspondence. But does it do so? It
seems far more likely that children construct early number
concepts by pointing, touching or moving objects, counting as
they do so. Where there are no more objects to count, then the
idea of the cardinal number presents itself immediately. Life gets
more complicated when objects are in a pile or a circle or you have
to count so many from a larger set. But most of the children in
our study could do all this and the sorts of pre-number activities
which are being questioned normally appear in school in
mathematics schemes, not in the nursery or at home.
In a comprehensive review of available research Young-
Loveridge (1987) examines early mathematical instruction and
questions whether it needs to be delayed until ‘more general
cognitive abilities’ have appeared’ (ibid.). In New Zealand (her

country) children entering school have to wait a year before
exploring number concepts although reading instruction begins at
once. She argues that matching, ordering, sorting, comparing and
classifying (although useful in other respects) are not necessary
pre-requisites for being able to deal with number (counting,
cardinality, operations, etc.). The reason for the prevalence of pre-
number activities stems from Piagetian views about number being
a part of a ‘single system’ so that children are not thought to be
able to deal with number until logical thinking has developed.
Other cognitive psychologists regard number as a ‘relatively
different cognitive domain’. Reviewing the available evidence (to
which the Durham Project adds weight) Young-Loveridge
concludes that there is no evidence whatsoever that teaching
number too early will be harmful and a great deal which shows
that children can and do succeed in mathematical tasks even
when they fail Piagetian tasks.
Similarly, but from a different perspective, Womack (1993)
questions the ‘accepted wisdom of sorting, ordering and matching
in order to teach simple number to infants’ (ibid.). He observed
teachers in remote African schools who did not have training or
materials but ught children counting, addition and subtraction
using sticks, pebbles and the children themselves. We suggest,
therefore, that early number should be an oral activity which does
not need pre-number activities to he successful. Notation,
including symbols, must be introduced in the c course but
children need not be held back because their motor skills are less
advanced than their mathematical attainment.
How Do Children Learn Before Coming to

School?
There have been some studies of children learning at home. For
example, Wells’ (1978) extensive studies in Exeter recorded home
language and then followed children into school. Tizard and
Hughes (1984) monitored the experiences of 30 children at home
and in nursery school. Hughes (1989) also studied language in the
homes of young children. Dunn (1989) looked at the family as an
educational environment for young children. The general
conclusions drawn from these studies is of the home as a
powerful learning environment particularly for language
development. The mathematical studies which we have discussed
cause us to draw the same conclusions with the added advantage
in the Durham Project of a period in nursery education. Of course
the home experiences of some children will be different from

others whose home life prepares them better for school. If certain
school-like experiences are lacking (or at least not apparent)
teachers provide them, especially in the nursery. We might,
however, consider a project in New Zealand which investigated
pupils who were high achievers in mathematics but of low socio-
economic status. It found that socio-economic status was less
important to high achievement in school than home exposure to a
wide range of experience involving numbers including ‘baking and
shopping, Snakes and Ladders, Strip Jack Naked, Poker,
Monopoly, Bingo and dominoes’ (Young-Loveridge, 1989).
It is possible to hazard a guess that mathematical conversations
may occur in homes even where, for example, parents do not read
or write a good deal so children are less generally literate. The
ability of so many children to use spatial language in the Durham
study is not so surprising when we consider how often these
words occur in ordinary talk. ‘Just get my my glasses for me pet, I
left them on the telly in the front room’. Parents implicitly adopt a
constructivist stance when they count fingers or toes, sing
number rhymes or play cards with their children. These situations
will not provide a progression through mathematics learning in an
ordered way, as for example most commercial mathematics
schemes do. Number, shape, space, measures, probability will not
be separated out, but, as pointed out in chapter 2, mathematical
facts and concepts are inter-related. When pre-schoolers meet
mathematics at home or in the nursery they are already beginning
to learn some ‘principles, rules and meanings’ (chapter 2) of the
subject in a social context. Thus children will become (all too)
familiar with ‘You have grown. You are taller than Billy now and
he’s nearly five.’ Learning acquired painlessly (but not without
being tested against experience) is not superficial and becomes
part of children’s mental maps. Tizard and Hughes (1984) refer to
periods of ‘intellectual search’ which children engaged in at home.
These were conversations children had with adults, about events
which interested them, where the child struggled to fit new
information into current structures. The adult’s role included
information but was also characterized by interest and attention
to what the child was trying to express. These sorts of
conversations were not found even in nursery schools in this
research, which, for a number of reasons is not very surprising.
School Learning
Although children have a propensity to learn and many do so
easily at home it would be foolish to underestimate the task
teachers have. It could be and has been argued (Tizard and
Hughes, ibid.) that teachers should learn from parents. This is to
underrate the difference between schools and homes. Teachers
have to deal with 30 or so children at once not one at a time.
Parents also have the great advantage of knowing their children’s
history, the family, the likely events, what interests children, their
moods; in fact a great deal (though not all, as parents would be
the first to admit) about them. Teachers do not know all this nor
do they pretend to. They have experience of many children in
many classes but that very experience warns them about what
they do not know. So teachers’ constructivism has to be adaptive
to classroom situations and a great many individual differences.
Furthermore, unlike parents, teachers have a specific agenda
for the content of their teaching. They have a curriculum to
implement and always have had even before the advent of the
National Curriculum. Parents can and perhaps should be wide
ranging in the experiences which they introduce. Teachers are
more restricted. Their job is to introduce socially valued
knowledge of a particular sort. This includes values and attitudes
but curriculum content is prescribed. Enabling children to learn
in school, taking up a constructivist stance, may well be harder
than enabling them to learn at home. To a certain extent we
cannot follow where children lead if we consider the differences of
interests and attainment between 30 or so children across ten
subjects. The skill of teachers is to balance the autonomy of each
learner against the directions which the curriculum must take.
Teachers have to interest children in their agendas while enabling
children to contribute and use what they already know. (This may
include the ‘differentiation by outcome’ approach as discussed in
chapter 2.) We have attempted, in several previous chapters, to
make suggestions which enable children to construct their
mathematics with the teacher. We should emphasize here that
children constructing mathematics is not the same as expecting
children to do this on their own. The role of the teacher and her
teaching is crucial.
Leaving the Durham Project, another interesting scheme is
described by Fenema, Carpenter and Peterson (1989). This
involved what was called ‘Cognitively Guided Instruction’. The
major tenets of CGI are:
(1) Instruction must be based on what each learner knows.

(2) Instruction should take into consideration how children’s
mathematical ideas develop naturally, and
(3) Children must be mentally active as they learn
mathematics (ibid.).
The techniques used by the teachers involved in this project do not

seem much more than common sense to a British audience.
They included the sorts of story formats we have put in chapter 3.
Teachers also seized opportunities to pose problems about
addition and subtraction (which were the focus of the study)
taking a few minutes to use, for example, children who took
packed lunch, went home or had school dinners to ask questions.
We have often observed these sorts of things in British classrooms
where teachers also used the American ploy of often asking
children how they arrived at their answers and if anyone else
could suggest another way. The American teachers were also
aware of the different kinds of addition and subtraction problems
there are which are served by the same symbols and that a
correct answer, without some probing into how it was arrived at,
may not be evidence of understanding.
An important point to consider about this research is, however,
that children’s progress was dependent on the teacher’s
knowledge of the mathematics involved, her techniques and her
knowledge of how children think about mathematics. So far in
this chapter we have looked at mathematics for younger children
although we believe that the principles, even if applied rather
differently, apply to older primary pupils. Again, it may be useful
to teachers if we look at how children and adults learn and use
mathematics outside school.
Real Mathematics?
In this discussion we shall draw extensively on a recent summary
of ‘street mathematics’ written by Nunes, Schlieman and Carraher
(1993). Street mathematics is the term these authors use for
mathematics employed in everyday life, often by adults and
children with little or no formal schooling. Research in this area,
therefore, is often carried out in countries where compulsory
schooling is brief and of poor quality for poorer sections of the
community. Such disadvantage is unfortunate but it does provide
opportunities for investigations into informal mathematics use
and comparisons with school mathematics.
Nunes et al. (ibid.) have been working in Brazil for a decade.

They have looked at the differences between children’s success in
oral and written problems, where they often fail the latter because
they are confused by trying to apply procedures learned in school
instead of thinking about the problem. They have also looked at
how unschooled fishermen and carpenters invent and use
complex mathematical skills in their daily lives. It is not possible
here to summarize a wealth of research but it may be useful here
to look at some points of interest which are related to the view we
have taken about school learning.
In the first place we must ask if anything can be learned from
street mathematics which is applicable to schools. It could be
argued that unlike school mathematics, street mathematics is
specific to a particular situation and is therefore not able to be
extended, transferred or generalized. If that were wholly the case
street mathematicians would not be able to solve problems which
were not found in their experience. However Nunes et al. (ibid.)
found many instances where experience was able to be adjusted
by use of imaginary and different situations. For example,
fishermen who used ratio to calculate profit from their catches
could extend this skill to an imaginary weight (suggested to them
to be the case in another part of the country) to solve problems
which were clearly not found in their particular situation. Nunes et
al. (ibid.) also report a study by Dias (1988) where it was made
clear to children that, in order to solve certain problems,
experience had to be amended ‘by inducing children to create a
mental world (our emphasis) that they temporarily consider in
their reasoning’. This notion has resonance with our argument
that mathematics in the classroom does not have to be ‘real’ in the
sense of, for example, calculating the amount of drink needed for
a party which will actually take place. Reality can be a mental
construct in the classroom, we have suggested, which is brought
about by social agreement and interaction between children and
their teachers.
Nunes et al. (ibid.) indicate that young children have problems
with the concept of a unit of measurement. They may count
objects correctly but do not easily grasp that for example, ten 2p
coins has a different value from ten 20p coins. This will come as
no surprise to teachers. Young street traders must, of course,
understand the notion of a unit very quickly. They do so even if
they are illiterate but are familiar with a money economy. Again
this is not surprising but it does draw attention to the necessity,
in school, of using units of measurement. It is a very different
thing to measure a line in a book from measuring the length of a
worm or a gerbil. Measurement requires these real activities,

although the reason for the measurement of money, distance,
weight, area and so on can be a construct which makes sense to
children. Measuring for a purpose will almost always give results
which are not tidy, that is not 3cm but a bit more or a bit less.
This sort of result enables children to understand that
measurement is never exact because it depends on the size of the
unit selected which can be infinitely large or small (but needs to
be appropriate—not centimetres for the hall). Furthermore, it is
the use of any unit, be it in coins, minutes, metres, cupfulls or
whatever which enables children to estimate. A fisherman can
estimate the weight (and value) of his catch and a
quantity surveyor the cost of a building because of their extensive
experience. Neither children nor adults can estimate without
experience.
When Nunes et al. (ibid.) consider the implications of their
research for teachers they draw attention to the concept of
‘realistic mathematics education’ which they say is most developed
in the Freudenthal Institute in Utrecht.
Realistic mathematics education involves posing to pupils in

the classroom problems that require the consideration of
empirical constants as well as social and logical rules that
apply outside school. In this conception, solving a problem
involves making decisions about how to proceed in imagined
situations (ibid.).
They agree that it is hard to think of good problems to work on in

classrooms. Some problems or situations they suggest may fly in
the face of logic too much. For example, Nunes et al. (ibid.) quote
Gravemeijer (1990) saying that the following problem becomes a
joke. ‘There were ten birds in a tree, two were killed by gunshot.
How many were left?’
We can agree with Nunes et al. (ibid.) that the first problem
shown below makes more sense that the second:
A problem from realistic mathematic education.

Tonight 81 parents will visit school. At each table 6 parents
can be seated
How many tables will we need?
An unrealistic problem about time.
John ate 8 Big Macs. It takes 25 minutes to eat a Big Mac.
How long did it take him to eat them all?
We drew attention above to the suggestion that ‘reality’ can be a

mental construct in the classroom. A good deal of what we have
discussed in this book relates to such mental constructs. We do
not necessarily agree with the idea of ‘realistic mathematics
education’ depending on what interpretation is put on ‘empirical
constants as well as social and logical rules that apply outside
school’. As we have made clear we do not believe that
mathematical situations in the classroom need to be ‘real’ in the
sense that they could actually occur. An important part of
anyone’s life as well as events which happen are those which
might happen and those which are unlikely or impossible.
We refer, of course, to the imagination, to fantasy and to stories.
Imagination, fantasy and story are part of social and cultural
experience We were not indulging in whimsy when we asked
children to talk with a panda in the Durham Project, nor when we
encouraged participation in dramatic play, as in chapter 3. For
instance, the children were as aware as we were that toy pandas
do not talk or listen. We were drawing on those parts of their
experiences which are different from the empirical but which are
part of reality.
To some extent a great deal of school learning seems to have
little connection with the world outside school. We no longer ask
children to solve odd problems about how long it takes x workmen
to dig y ditches at z rate. But we do ask them very often to take on
trust, that what we are teaching is worth while. As deferred
gratification—‘it (may) help you get a good job’—is rather remote,
it may well be more productive to construct situations in school,
where what we are doing in mathematics makes sense in that
situation and gives point to activities. It is possible that doing so
may be more productive,.rather than less so, to children
understanding that mathematics has uses and applications
outside of school.
The need to construct a ‘mental world’ in which mathematics
comes alive and is necessary is evident if they are to use and
apply what they know or learn of mathematics by using it.
Looking rather more broadly at mental worlds we can consider
topics or projects. It has been argued (Palmer and Pettitt, 1993)
that no subject should be included in a topic unless it has a
sensible and justifiable place in that topic. Nevertheless, a
powerful reason for doing topics in the primary school is that,
when done well, the whole topic is a mental construct where
learning, including learning mathematics, becomes less neat and
tidy but opens up the rich variety of concepts subjects involve.
Thus, a topic on ‘shopping’ or ‘minibeasts’ or ‘the environment’

to name very few, involves money, measuring or co-ordinates and
enables mathematics to be used. Similarly, topics focused on
science or history require data handling skills. We are not arguing
against the need for mathematics to be done separately; for
revision or practice or new learning. Nor do we dispute that
children take pleasure in doing pages of sums. Nor do we deny,
indeed we advocate, that mathematics can be done for the
intrinsic enjoyment of puzzling out its principles. Nevertheless,
pages of sums are not necessarily able to be transferred to new
situations. That is, each skill may be limited to a particular page
and not connected to other modes of presentation. Enjoying
mathematics for the pleasure of wrestling with a problem may be
the province of too few children. Many more ways forward need to
be found to bring the majority of children to think mathematically
and some of these may have been suggested in our previous
chapters.
Conclusion
University lecturers, researchers, advisers and even (because of
new pressures) head teachers can forget, all too easily, what it is
like to be a classroom teacher. Nothing that any of these people
(including ourselves) say or do is profitable unless it can be used
by teachers in their classrooms. It is classroom teachers who will,
if it is possible, raise standards and it is they who will or will not
think it possible or profitable to implement some of our proposals.
Much of what we suggest comes from our own experience as
teachers and from teachers with whom we have worked. We
should like to conclude, therefore, not by repeating what we have
suggested but by leaving the last word with a teacher. The
Durham Project, in its second phase, funded by ESRC, enabled us
to observe Reception class teachers in action. They were also kind
enough to give us their views on teaching mathematics. The
following are excerpts from what one teacher said to us.
On feeling comfortable with mathematics
(After saying that she had always liked mathematics)
I think infant (teachers) took Cockroft on board much more

quickly than anyone else did. And I think that one of the
possible reasons is the discipline reason in that a child sat
down doing a pile of sums is quiet and the teacher feels in
control of the situation.…(some teachers can still) get
frightened because children are talking to one another….
(on her concept of ‘quality time’)
you can’t teach everybody at the same level, all of the time…
Your aim isn’t to make everybody a professor of
mathematics…
(a lower attaining child) has still got to enjoy mathematics
at the level she is operating.
On key concepts in mathematics in the Reception class
‘I’ve thought about this for a long time. Number…symbols

and number and then operations…, the language of
mathematics. Shape and pattern, sequencing ordering,
measurement to a certain extent but I think they learn a lot of
measurement not in school. Children learn to tell the time
not in school. And we spend a lot of time doing it….
The National Curriculum is a wonderful check list. The
trouble is other things have made AT1 not happen…. The
problem with AT1 is people don’t know how to do it…. The
best way I’ve found is to do it with a whole class…then set it
up and leave it set up while there’s still interest there…with
the slower ones I revisit it and I revisit it with the whole class
as well…. You are constantly reflecting on what is happening
and who is doing what, which you can do with 25 quite
easily….
On how children learn
I think it’s this small group situation…me sat with them with
either a game or an activity…even if its actually writing sums…
I would still sit with them, keeping tabs on them and what I
need to adjust.
After discussing the difficulty of getting it all in:
Your maths games aren’t a Friday activity, that’s done when

you’ve finished your work and as an extra. You know why you
are doing it and what they are learning from it as long as you
adapt it for your learning situation. I look at them and think
‘What do I want from this?’…I think my most valuable
equipment is maths games…you can work with children at
different levels to stretch your more able (children)—you have
got to think through what you want from it and then know
you are going to have W…and what can I add for him or for
S…or whatever.
Direct teaching versus discovery.
I think Plowden was misinterpreted. I think it was right that

the child and their needs are first and then you match and
that’s when somehow, somebody got the message that you
don’t teach children. I don’t know why but it came through.
I don’t know why it did, that children must discover for
themselves…unless you’ve got a repertoire of certain
things you are not going to learn anything. How can I explain
what I mean? You have got to teach children something so
they can go on and discover…you have got to teach them how
to learn, and you’ve got to teach them facts and methods as
well and how to do things…learning is like an apprenticeship
isn’t it, you know, we are further on in life so we pass on what
we’ve learnt by showing, speaking, explaining, talking, getting
something back, you know this exchange…. Lets get AT1
really talked about but how can we do it?
The teacher goes on to discuss the overcrowded curriculum:
I think the only way we can get the core (subjects) right is more
time and to explain it more fully to everybody. Because I
think we are just being like butterflies flitting from one to the
other.
I don’t do a lot of recording in maths. The children have got
to write sums but day after day of sums and sums isn’t
teaching a child maths it’s simply keeping them out of your
hair.
The word progress is very, very misleading as is
achievement really. What you see is change. Progress infers
that you are going linear forward, achieve suggests a
mountain you are going to climb and neither of those tally
with learning theories—that you are doing this aren’t you;
forward and back, forward and back.
There are a lot of things Reception children know that are
what I would call roots of the plant, that you can’t see, that
they don’t tell you, but nevertheless is being absorbed, being
learnt…must have a good strong root system before any
leaves are going to shoot on top.
On planning and commercial schemes:

I have used them all (commercial schemes). I can find fault

with them all. Nevertheless, yes we need them, to be honest,
for a variety of reasons. When you are experienced, when you
are supplying, it needs continuity in the schools and some
teachers do need them…you see the ideas and you know the
sequence…I haven’t done much data handling for a while—
we better do it. I’m very much against in this fortnight you
do data handling for a while and this fortnight we do shape
and in this fortnight you do number and so forth.
On attitude:
Then there is this idea of attitude. That with young children

is very important. In fact I think they pick up more than they
do with the spoken word. I think they take on board, they
know, whether you like maths, whether you are excited by
what you are doing…
On advice to a student:
Get the basic organization in your classroom so independent

learning can go on and that frees you to do what you planned.
On giving a lot of yourself and to some extent exposing yourself to

a student and colleagues:
Yes, you’ve got to be prepared to laugh at yourself and say This

isn’t working, put it away’.
They think I can’t sit down with every child and do an
investigation. You can’t. You can sit down with a big group,
you can sit down with a small group. If the group are familiar
with it (the investigation) the children will talk about it as
well. So actually children will learn something from children
as well.
I hope I am being a help (to a student) because I think it
really must be an apprenticeship. For too long we have been
in our own classrooms with our cupboards locked and I think
we have been a very unsharing bunch of people…. We have
just got to come out and say. But then you have got to be the
sort of person that can trip over a banana skin and pick
themselves up and laugh and get on with it because it is
going to happen when you do that.
Obviously, these very small extracts are taken from a transcript of

a conversation. We could have tidied up what was said but we
would not presume to do so nor would we have wished to tamper
with the thinking of an experienced and excellent teacher. She
may not do in her classroom all the things we have suggested, but
it is transparent to us that this is what we mean by a
constructivist teacher.
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Notes on Contributors
Editors
Andrew Davis is Director of the PGCE Primary Course at Durham
University and Lecturer in Early Years and Mathematics. He
contributes to INSET and the MA programme in Mathematics
Education. Previously a primary teacher for many years, he then
moved to Homerton College, Cambridge to teach Philosophy of
Education. Research interests include philosophical psychology of
mathematics learning, and assessment. Publications include
several related academic papers, together with computer software,
and various curriculum articles in magazines such as Junior
Education and Infant Projects.
Deirdre Pettitt lectures in the School of Education at the
University of Durham. She moved from infant teaching into higher
education at the University of East Anglia, where she directed the
Early Years teacher education course (1985 to 1987). Her major
research interest is Early Years. Since 1990 she has worked with
Carol Aubrey on the investigation of informal mathematical
knowledge children bring to school. Her publications include (with
Joy Palmer) Topic Work in the Early Years —4–8 (1993, London,
Routledge), and chapters on history and writing in The Role of
Subject Knowledge in the Early Years of Schooling, edited by Carol
Aubrey (1994, Falmer Press).
Other Writers
Jennifer Buckham is an artist and art-educator and has had
experience of teaching all age groups of children. She taught for
thirteen years in both primary and secondary schools in Nairobi
and London before moving into higher education. She worked as a
lecturer at Kingston Polytechnic and the University of Exeter
before joining the School of Education in Durham. Her main area
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 169
of research is concerned with children’s drawing development and

repertoire. She has built up an extensive collection and record of
children’s work in both Kenyan and British contexts and has a
particular interest in individual case studies. She contributed to
The Role of Subject Knowledge in the Early Years of Schooling,
edited by Carol Aubrey (1994, Falmer Press).
Maria Goulding lectures in Mathematics Education at Durham
University. She has worked in teacher education for ten years,
having previously taught in inner city schools in Liverpool. She
has been involved in the professional preparation of primary and
secondary teachers of mathematics and has worked extensively in
school-based In-Service Education. Her research interests include
the use of calculators and computers, and gender issues. She has
written in both these areas. Several of her publications appear in
journals of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, of which
she is the Durham Branch Secretary.
Peter Millward directs the BA(Ed) Course at Durham University.
He lectures in Language and Drama for Initial Teacher Education,
INSET, the MA programme and supervises higher degree work. His
research interests are child language and drama: Language of
Drama (doctoral thesis, 1988), Drama as a Well-made Play
(Language Arts, 1990), Children Talking About Poetry (with Linda
Thompson, 1991), and The Role of Subject Knowledge in the Early
Years of Schooling, edited by Carol Aubrey (1994, Falmer Press).
Brian Woodhouse lectures in Education at the University of
Durham and has taught mathematics from university degree level
to Key Stage 1. He has also extensive experience in In-service
teaching and contributes to the MA programme. He has a
particular interest in both mathematical and educational aspects
of concepts in probability and statistics.
Index
Adults constructing mathematics Control over children’s learning 15–

47–59 16
Accommodation 10 Copying, learning as 1–2, 11, 25
Action games 33 Coulthard, R. 28, 163
Addition 34, 99 Counting 33, 99–101, 150
Ahmed, A. 55, 161 Court, E. 127, 161
Alexander, R. 3, 21, 161 Cox, M.V. 123, 161
Algebra 75, 102 Creating conflict 77
Angles 53, 55
Art 114–137 Davis, A.J. 1, 6, 11, 20, 28, 82, 97,
Assimilation 10 138, 161
Athey, C. 114, 123, 161 Davis, R.B. 60, 162
ATM 81 Day, C. 161
Aubrey, C. 141, 161 Dearing Report 140, 162
DES 126, 162
Bailey, C. 2, 161 Desforges, C. 91, 141, 144, 162
Billington, J. 69, 161 Dias 154
Bolton, G. 28, 30, 161 Dienes, Z.P. 50, 162
Brissenden, T. 23, 161 Differentiation by outcome 16, 152
Brown, S. 164 Differentiation by task 16
Buckham, J. 114–137 Donaldson, M. 139, 162
Drama 3, 20, 25–33, 37–46, 117
Cardinality 150 Drawing 4, 114–137
Carpenter, T.P. 152, 162 Dubery, F. 122, 162
Carreher, D.W. 153, 163 Dunn, J. 150, 162
Child-centred ideas 3, 5 Durham Project 141, 144, 148–
Closed task 16 149, 156–157
Cockburn, A. 91, 139, 145, 162
Cockroft, W. 139 Ernest, P. 9, 19, 84, 162
Cognitively Guided Instruction 152 Evans, P. 69, 161
Constructing mathematics by Evans, Z. 35
playing games 82–96 Experiences outside school 4, 150–
Constructivism 2–3, 9–10, 13–14, 1
16–19, 82, 97
Context variables 48 Factors 105
170
INDEX 171
Fenema, E. 152, 162 Mathematical understanding 2, 10,

Fractions 11, 54–55 11
Function machine 104 Mathematics is not a fixed
inhuman abstract system 10
Games 4, 82–96 Mathematics, nature of 6–9
Games of chance 63 Matthews, 114, 117, 127, 163
Gattegno, C. 50, 162 McNamara, D. 139, 163
Goldin, G.A. 58, 162 Memorizing 10
Golomb, C. 115, 162 Millward, P. 20, 27, 163
Goulding, M. 60–81, 162 Movement 120, 124, 128
Gravemeijer 155 Multiples 105–107
Multiplication 108
Haylock, D. 139, 145, 162 Multiplication squares 63
Heathcote, D. 30, 162
Hughes, M. 150–151, 162 Narrative 3, 22–24, 35–36
Hurwitz, A. 120, 164 Nunes, T. 153–155, 163
INSET 47, 58 Objective and independent

Instrumental understanding 12–13 character of mathematics? 8
Investigation 67, 74, 76, 139 OFSTED 47, 163
Open task 16
Johnson, D. 98, 163 Operations 150
Operative variables 48
Kaplan, B. 120, 164 Ordering 150
Kirkby, D. 90, 163
Paley, V.G. 32, 163
Learning Palmer, J. 145, 156, 163
by adults constructing or Parents 151–2
reconstructing knowledge 47–59 Pattern 60–81, 102
cannot result from transmission Perceptual Variability Principle (of
1–3, 6–19 Z.P. Dienes) 50
mathematics as constructing Perret-Claremont 144
concept networks 10–11 Perry, M.D. 115, 118, 122, 164
mathematics: children Personal methods of working 63
discussing their drawings 114– Peterson, P.L. 152, 162
137 Pettitt, D. 20, 82, 138–160, 163
through socio-dramatic Piaget, J. 10, 13, 17, 150
contexts 20–22, 29–33, 37–46 Planning investigations 75
through ‘storying’ 22–25 Plato 9, 19
LOGO 64, 79–80, 103 Play 37, 43
Plowden 158
Matching 150 Polya, a, G. 59
Mathematical Association 35 Polygons 56
Mathematical facts 7, 9, 11 Problem 63, 67
Mathematical knowledge 11 Problems in classroom
Mathematical language 36, 145– organisation 21
147 Professional development 47
172 INDEX
Proportion 118, 132 Symmetry 53, 55, 108–109

Puppets 36, 38
Taylor, R. 126, 164
Real world 24 Tessellations 56, 63
Realistic mathematics 24 Thompson, I. 63, 164
Realistic mathematics education Thornton, C. 99, 164
155–156 Time 115, 120, 128, 130, 132
‘Reality’ 154–155 Tizard, B. 151, 164
Reception Class 4, 21, 101, 102, Tolkien, J.R.R. 41, 164
140, 141, 144, 157 Transmission, teaching as 1–3, 5,
Reflection 74 6, 11, 13, 16, 19, 25, 28
Relational understanding 12–13,
16, 139 Varkalis, A. 127, 164
Representations of objects 115 Von Glasersfeld 3, 60, 164
Rhythm 107–108 Vygotsky 18
Roamer 64
Role of the teacher is crucial to Walter, M. 164
constructivism:-children drawing Wells, G.C. 22, 150, 164
114 Werner, H. 120, 164
Rotation 74 Whole class teaching 3
Rote learning 2, 10 Wiegel, H.G. 58, 163
Rules 8, 82–84, 86–87, 92 Willats, J. 122, 123, 164
Wilson, B. 120, 126, 127, 164
Scale 118, 120, 132 Wilson, M. 120, 164
Schemes (commercial maths Wolf, D. 115, 117, 118, 122, 126,
schemes) 16, 159 164
Schielmann, A.D. 153, 163 Womack, D. 150, 165
Schoenfeld, A. 58, 163 Woodhouse, B. 47, 113, 139
Sequences of movement in space
130 Young-Loveridge 149, 151, 165
Shape 115
Simultaneity 128
Sinclair, J. 28, 163
Singing rhymes 33–34
Skemp, R. 12, 109–111, 163
Smith, N.R. 114, 115, 122, 163
Social constructivism 9, 19, 82
Socio-dramatic play 20–21, 37–40,
42–46
Sorting 150
Sound 4, 97–113
Sound dice 101, 109
Space 115
Steffe, L.P. 58, 163
Story 3, 20, 22–25, 33–37
Subcreation (gnomes scenario) 41
Subtraction 34, 99

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Developing Understanding in Primary

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ISBN 0-203-39342-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-39626-X (Adobe eReader Format)

Jacket design by Caroline Archer

‘What is the capital of France, Smith?’

In effect learning per se is being equated with one of its

climate it is especially important to be able to support practice

confidence, and capacities to help children to learn. This thought

1 Child-centred thinkers in the fifties and sixties effectively criticized

(1) It is wrong about the knowledge which is to be gained by

In this chapter we cast light on these three interconnected

might well deem exposition to be your single most effective

immutable, and, so to speak, ‘out there’; they are part of the

Speaking of children ‘constructing’ or ‘inventing’ mathematics

…objective knowledge of mathematics is social, and is not

with its relationship with other number facts. Any attempt to

The Implications of this for Learning

Consider Parveen, who has a good understanding of numbers to

What is it to Know Something Mathematical?

What is it to know that 15+14=29? As we have already said, we

regardless of what is taking place or even what could take place in

Constructivism and the Control of Learning

disadvantages. A great deal of Piagetian baggage must be

There is now a clamour to be allowed to be the silly milkman.

The ‘silly milkman’ play activity shows a teacher teaching, but in

requires and is likely to develop relational understanding, whereas

Constructivism: Other Points

We make the assumption throughout this book that to

Conclusion: Isn’t all this just Common Sense?

valued by all primary teachers. And we are not advancing here a

In the infant classroom, teachers, well aware of the power of

Now some readers might be inclined to use ideas just as they

I shall get wet. At other times the strategy is deliberately employed.

narrative. Similarly, teachers can set up situations so this can

cards is that in the solitary situation of the printed page learning

Drama and Everyday Experience

is managed from moment to moment and sustained by the work

engaged in their own learning and they are responsible for

The Dramatic Presentation of Experience

through their expertise, hold a candle to the teacher/milkperson’s

Drama and Mathematical Knowledge

have an inadequate grasp of number, and the more successfully

Dramatic contexts based on mathematical

this. The milkperson may be pretty stupid in many ways, but it is

Mathematical knowledge applied to dramatic

Drama as a background to mathematical activities

awkward people who dream up a host of different challenges and

A Start to the Use of Stories in Mathematics

such as counting, addition and subtraction. A few examples will

One, two, three, four, five,

Five little ducks went out one day,

One elephant was balancing,

These rhymes are invaluable and children love to do the actions

Children: She counted them.

of her stories and games are available commercially (see

Drama and Dramatic Play: Mathematical

Working with a Group to Create a Story Context

need to be made for this. In terms of the earlier classification, it