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Training guide

Site: OpenLearn Create
Course: Active teaching and learning for Africa (7): Numeracy across the curriculum
Book: Training guide
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Monday, 17 February 2025, 9:24 PM

Numeracy across the curriculum

Supporting learners to develop skills in numeracy is everyone’s responsibility. Being able to recognise and use number skills fluently is important for learners’ job prospects. Hence, teachers in ALL subjects should take any opportunity to show that numeracy is important and enable learners to practise using those skills in different contexts. Seeing numeracy outside the classroom makes its importance clear and offers opportunities to develop an understanding of numbers and to practise numeracy skills.

The resources in this course will help you to:

  • support learners to develop numeracy through active teaching and learning
  • support the learning of numeracy across different subjects
  • support learners to develop numeracy across different levels.

The activities in these resources are designed for you to try in your Teacher Group Meetings (TGMs) and then to use them in your lessons. The classroom examples in these resources will give you some ideas on how to adapt the activities for your lessons, and how to use active teaching and learning to develop numeracy skills.

The aim of these resources is not to show you how to TEACH numeracy, but to give ideas on how you can SUPPORT numeracy across the curriculum in your lessons. Work with your colleagues and discuss with them how you could adapt the ideas for different lessons. It is a good idea to keep a separate section in your Teacher Notebook, where you can write down any ideas you have and activities you try, and then share them with your colleagues in the TGMs. If you don’t feel very confident in your own numeracy skills, have a look at these TESSA Numeracy resources and try some of the activities with a colleague.

Good numeracy skills

Having good numeracy skills is an essential foundation for a successful education, opening up choices that can make a huge difference to a person’s life. Learning to be confident in using numbers takes a lot of practice.

By encouraging learners to use numeracy in all subjects, you can really help them to not only build their skills, but also to see just how widespread and important numeracy skills are.

Activity 7.1: Finding numeracy everywhere

Working individually, think through the kinds of numeracy that occur in daily life. Try to list ten ideas. Now share your ideas with other teachers and make a list on a board of all the ideas that the group has come up with.

Teachers planning together.

Now consider subject areas other than mathematics. Make a list of the kinds of numeracy that occur in every subject.

Examples might be:

  • measuring in physical education
  • understanding big numbers and relative sizes in geography
  • helping learners understand, spell and pronounce numeracy terminology in literacy.

See Resource 3 for more ideas.

Compare the lists. Which daily life numeracy skills are used in several subjects? Which might only be used in mathematics and perhaps science? Consider how some of the list of everyday numeracy ideas could be part of every lesson, so that learners become confident and skilled in their use.

Numeracy friendly environment

Making sure that your learners understand that numeracy is everywhere is important and creating a numeracy friendly environment is one way to do it.

The next activity asks you to think about how this might be done.

Activity 7.2: Building a numeracy rich environment

Work in pairs to consider how you could make your classroom a numeracy rich environment.

For example, you could have:

  • Various number lines around the classroom, perhaps above other notice boards, marked in negative and positive numbers in tens, hundreds, decimals or fractions. Number lines can be marked to help your learners understand the numeracy you need in your classroom. Perhaps you could also have a blank number line where the learners could add the numbers they need for their calculations.

A number line marked in hundreds

A number line marked in hundreds

  • A board where the learners write any words that are associated with numeric ideas they meet in their lessons, such as multiply, big or small, subtract, probability, half, decimal, bar chart, and so on.
  • A table with packets and bottles labelled with the mass or capacity of their contents. Ask the learners to organise them in size when they have finished other work. Make sure they know what the abbreviations used on the packaging mean.

Make a list of all the ideas you can think of and then write one down in your Teacher Notebook that you can commit to using in your classroom before the next TGM.

Number sense

Number sense is an important skill that all people need in order to understand the world around them.

But some children, for many reasons, do not get the chance to get a real feeling for single digit numbers.

And many more get very confused over larger numbers or very small numbers.

Classroom Example 7.1: Increasing number sense in all children

A primary school wanted to make sure that all their children developed good number sense at least for numbers under a hundred. 

The school set up a series of games which the children would enjoy playing in lessons across the curriculum. The school decided that once the children understood the rules of the games, the teachers would observe what was happening. By observing the various games, teachers would be able to pick out who understood numbers of all sizes well and who needed more help. 

Over the course of a week, the children worked in different groups so that the teachers could see if some children were copying others and did not really understand, and which children had a good understanding and needed to be challenged more.

Children in groups playing games.

The games the school used were:

  1. Question and answer game
  2. Identifying the mathematics game
  3. Loop card game
  4. Moruba cultural game
  5. Number 999 game

    This game needs a set containing four lots of 0–9 number cards and a pen and paper per group. Each player writes 999 on their paper. They take turns to turn over three cards and arrange them in such a way that they make the biggest number they can. They then subtract this number from 999 and record what is left. The next player takes three cards and makes the biggest number they can and subtracts it from what is left. As they turn over the cards they will make a pile of ‘used’ cards – if they run out of cards they bring the ‘used’ cards pile back into play.

    If a player cannot make a number from their cards that can be taken away from what is left, they miss a go. The winner is the first one to reach zero. The game can be played in pairs or groups of three. 

    Until the learners build their fluency with numbers and subtracting, it may be a good idea to limit the game to about 10 minutes and declare the player with the lowest number the winner.

    The game can be adapted for numbers up to 100, making it the 99 game. Use 3 sets of 0 to 9 per group for this adaptation.

Games that can increase number sense

Playing games is a great way of increasing number sense in all children.

Activity 7.3: Using games to increase number sense

Pick out two games to play together and play the games according to the rules.

Consider these points:

  • What skills are you practising? Are the rules complicated to learn? Could your learners pick them up quickly?
  • Could you use 10 minutes in a lesson to play a game to help your learners increase their number sense?
  • Are you enjoying playing the games even though you have good number sense?

Numerical ways of reasoning

As well as taking every opportunity to ask learners to measure, order and work with decimals or money, and use percentages and so on, developing your learners numerical ways of reasoning is also important.

The next activity suggests ways that teachers can ask their learners to use reasoning in any lesson.

Activity 7.4: Asking questions that prompt numerical thinking

Think about a lesson you have taught recently in any subject. Consider which of the following questions you could have used with a little re-phrasing. Pick out at least five and then discuss with a partner how using those questions could help learners to develop their numerical thinking.

  • How could you sort these…….?
  • How many ways can you find to ……. ?
  • What happens when we ……… ?
  • How many different ……. can be found?
  • What is the same/different?
  • Can you group these ……. in some way?
  • Is there a pattern?
  • How can this pattern help you find an answer?
  • What do you think comes next? Why?
  • Is there a way to record what you’ve found that might help see more patterns?
  • What would happen if….?

Big numbers

Many curriculum areas use big numbers. For example, geography uses thousands and millions to discuss populations and history asks learners to work with thousands, particularly in dates.

Use games like the one outlined next to help your learners to develop their numerical thinking and understanding.

Activity 7.5: Developing fluency with big numbers

Consider what kinds of numbers your learners need to understand to confidently use them in all curriculum areas. For example, they will need small decimals in science, dates and numbers to thousands in history, and use very big numbers and percentages in geography.

This activity, based on dates and events in history, can be designed to help learners to explore the numbers they come across in any subject area.

Make a set of cards on paper with important events and dates that your learners are working on (see Resource 1). Cut them out and order them with oldest dated event first and newest dated event last. What might learners find challenging if they were doing this activity?

For a class activity, write the cards out on large pieces of cardboard so that they can be read at a distance and ask for twenty volunteers to hold them. Then ask all the class to help get the dates in order. Note who struggles with reading and understanding the numbers.

In your TGM, discuss how you might use a similar set of cards to develop fluency with big or very small (decimal) numbers in teaching a subject other than history.

Work together as a group to produce various sets of cards to use in your lessons in the next week.

The last activity has two purposes. The first is to show the learners that numeracy can help them understand ideas in real life. The second is to help them develop their numerical vocabulary.

Numerical vocabulary

It can be very hard for learners to use words that they only hear their teachers use.

Sometimes they would rather point and say “that shape” rather than say “triangle”, which is a ‘teacher word’, not one that they own.

Working in groups means that they are more likely to use numerical vocabulary themselves.

Activity 7.6: Developing a numerical vocabulary

There are excellent ideas for working in groups available to you on this TESSA Numeracy site, such as Case Study 2 and Activity 2, as well as the activities shown below.

The triangle number game. The text reads: The triangle number game is the most versatile mathematics game for primary children. The game is played much like dominoes, where numbers are matched to each other to make a pattern. Two sides of the triangles are put together according to a chosen rule. In the example below, the ‘rule’ is that the two numbers must add up to 9.

Here is another idea that can work well, as it relates numeracy to real life. Complete this activity in groups of three.

Discuss the following:

  • What dangers do your family and friends worry about?
  • Look at the cards in Resource 2 Table 1. Which of these causes of accidental death seem to pose the greatest risk? Discuss which is most risky.
  • Use vocabulary such as “accidents on the road are more likely than accidents at home”.
  • Now look at the numbers in Resource 2 Table 2. Do the numbers change your mind about where the biggest risk of accident is?

Discuss how you might develop a similar set of cards to help your learners to develop numerical vocabulary about day-to-day measures, such as mass (for example, two kilos of flour) or capacity (for example, five litres of water) or money.

Work together as a group to produce various sets of cards that you can use in your lessons.

By using the ideas in these TGM activities, you will help your learners to develop their numeracy in all subjects and to understand how important numeracy is.

Resource 1: Cards for developing fluency with big numbers in history

Anglo-Zulu War

1879

The Battle of Mogadishu

1993

Zambia defeats Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in the Africa Cup of Nations

2012

Tacky’s War

1760

Zanzibar Revolution

1964

Dr Sam Nujoma becomes President of Namibia

1990

Nelson Mandela becomes President of South Africa

1994

The rise of the Ashanti Kingdom in West Africa

1700

First Sudanese civil war starts

1955

Britain defeats Germany and Italy at El Alamein in Egypt

1942

The second Ivorian civil war starts

2010

The Anglo-Ashanti war starts

1823

First Afro-Asian writers’ conference

1958

The second Italo-Abyssinian war starts

1935

The Arusha Declaration

1967

Nigeria becomes independent

1960

The Entebbe Raid

1976

The USA founds a colony for freed slaves in Liberia

1822

Kenya becomes independent

1963

Ghana becomes independent

1957

South Africa gains a democratic government

1994

Zimbabwe becomes independent

1980

Zambia becomes independent

1964

Mozambique becomes independent

1975

Resource 2: Talking about risk

Table 1 Where or how do most accidents happen?

Murder and assault

Aeroplane accidents

Traffic accidents

Terrorism

Accidental poisoning

Storms and earthquakes

Accidents at school

Accidents at home

Accidents at work

Influenza

Table 2 Deaths from various causes in 2022 in one country

Murder and assault
181

Aeroplane accidents
22

Traffic accidents
2477

Terrorism
12

Accidental poisoning
3109

Storms and earthquakes
86

Accidents at school
5

Accidents at home
3892

Accidents at work
347

Influenza
990

Resource 3: Numeracy skills

Subject

Numeracy skills

Literacy

Using words associated with numeracy/maths

Using comparisons to bring life to stories

Understanding metre in poem

Physical Education

Measuring time, distance, height

Counting

Relative sizes of numbers (ordering)

Science

Graphs

Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division

Tally charts

Sorting numbers

Very big and very small numbers

Conversion from metres to centimetres, minutes to seconds, kg to g

Simple statistics such as calculating averages, mean, median and range

Sustainability

Geography

Very large numbers, for example, distances, populations

Time zones

Graphs and measuring, for example, weather, rainfall, wind speed

Understanding trends such as weather, population growth, and economic figures

History

Ordering dates

Graphs of social trends

Simple statistics, for example, averages and the comparison of times between dates

Crafts/Technology

Measuring

Shapes

3D shapes construction

Costing materials

Languages

Words associated with numeracy

How much?

How long?

How many?

Life skills

Understanding risk and probability

Understanding statistics reported in the news

Understanding trends in data and making predictions

Shopping

Wages and taxation

Economics

Finance

Interest rates

Travel such as timetables and exchange rates

Music

Understanding different rhythms and beats

Using numbers to understand why different genres sound so different