Numeracy in the now: videos to help teach primary maths at home
Posted on: 21 May 2020
A new series of easy and accessible videos focused on numeracy for young children has been released online by researchers from Trinity.
‘Numeracy in the Now’ was created in collaboration with colleagues in the Marino Institute of Education, Mary Immaculate College and Limerick & Clare ETB.
The videos aim to help parents who are supporting their children’s learning in the home. They follow on from the recent ‘Literacy on the Loose’ series of videos that concentrated on reading and writing.
The videos aim to support literacy and numeracy at home in a simple way and are targeted at children in primary school and their parents.
‘Numeracy in the Now’ features six short videos that will help parents enhance their child’s numeracy areas through stress-free activities at home – such as cooking, gardening and treasure hunts.
The videos were shot by members of the collaborative team at their own homes, many of whom used their own children as subjects.
Both the numeracy and the literacy projects are being led by the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin and come out of an Irish Research Council-funded project on Family Digital Literacy in partnership with the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA).
The project is being led by Dr Aibhin Bray, assistant professor at Trinity, and is supported by Dr Ann Devitt, director of research in the School of Education, Trinity, and the new academic director at the Learnovate Centre, one of Europe’s leading research centres in learning technologies based at Trinity.
Drs Bray and Devitt said they wanted to create a series of videos to help rather than overwhelm parents who may be feeling bombarded with online links and resources.
Dr Ann Devitt said:
“As a result of COVID-19, parents have been thrown in at the deep end in terms of educating their children and are being asked to home school their children in a time of anxiety. Many are doing this while at the same time holding down full-time jobs – or maybe they have even lost their jobs – and feel under pressure.”
Dr Aibhin Bray added:
“We hope the videos can show parents how to emphasise numeracy concepts with their children in fun and informal ways. Numbers and maths are all around us and it can be really helpful for children when we draw attention to them in our everyday contexts.”
The videos can be viewed here.