Bright ideas for Christmas maths

As the Christmas period begins in earnest in all early years settings, it is very easy to lose sight of all the different aspects of learning and development in the Early Years Foundation Stage. To make sure you continue to offer learning opportunities across all areas of learning during the festive period, why not try some of the following ideas to develop children’s interests and capabilities in mathematics?

Counting and using numbers

• Replace your usual counting objects with items that have a Christmas theme – use non-breakable Christmas tree ornaments, Christmas cake decorations or pictures cut from Christmas cards.
• Make a Christmas number line with the children – use drawings, photographs, stickers or pictures from cards or wrapping paper. Try one star, two snowmen, three kings, four angels and so on.
• Help the children to make their own zigzag book showing their drawings of Christmas-related pictures illustrating the numbers one to five or one to 10.
• Think about which familiar number rhymes and songs could be altered to have a Christmas theme, for example, ‘Ten Red Santas Sitting on a Wall’ or ‘Old McDonald had a Toy Shop’.
• The older children in your setting will enjoy singing ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ and learning the actions that go with the song.

Simple problem-solving

• Use a pack of Christmas cards that has at least two of each of the different designs. Ask the children to match the designs in the set.
• Set the table for Christmas dinner in the home corner. Use festive paper plates and cups, paper napkins, crackers and place mats you have made. Encourage the children to set the table using the correct number of items for each of their friends who are coming for Christmas dinner.
• Look carefully at some sheets of wrapping paper that have clear repeating patterns on them. Help the children to draw lines to divide up a sheet of paper into sections so they can make their own wrapping paper by carefully repeating patterns of their own.
• Look at the variety of stamps being sold this Christmas. Ask the children to design a set of stamps. Talk about how stamps come in sheets or booklets – show the children examples if possible. Fold a sheet of paper into four, six or eight and encourage the older children to make sheets of stamps with different numbers of rows and columns. Count the stamps on the sheet in different ways and help the children to see the mathematical patterns they have created.
• Make a group or class book showing the children at different ages at Christmas. Ask the children’s families to provide photographs of the children at different ages and put these in a book or album showing ‘When we were babies’, ‘When we were one’ and so on.

Shapes, spaces and measures

• The youngest children will learn about spaces, shapes and measures while they investigate which objects will fit into a Christmas stocking. Make available a selection of different kinds of socks and Christmas stockings with your heuristic play resources.
• Provide a box of Christmas cards and their matching envelopes for the children to sort. Talk about the different shapes and sizes as they match the cards to the envelopes and fit them inside.
• Set up a post office in the role-play area. Wrap up a selection of cardboard boxes of different sizes and weights in either brown paper or wrapping paper. Ask the children to decide which of the parcels is the lightest or heaviest. Introduce them to comparative measures by asking which parcels are heavier or lighter than the one you have selected. Use balance scales or scales with weights to introduce the children to using standard measures. Make sure some of your smaller parcels are heavier than the larger ones. 
• You could add money, a till, cards, stamps and other products to sell in the post office to vary your transactional play.
• Alternatively you could set up a toy shop selling presents for Christmas using the toys and books in your setting. Make simple price tags and talk to the children about adding up the amounts of money and giving change.
• Make the most of your Christmas cooking activities by talking to the children about the standard measures you are using to measure the ingredients, the temperature of the oven if you are baking, and the time things take to prepare and cook. Help them to handle a range of equipment – spoons of different sizes, cups, measuring jugs and timers – as they make buns, mince pies, jellies or a large Christmas cake or pudding.
• The children will enjoy the old-fashioned pleasure of making paper chains. Either buy packs of paper especially for the purpose or cut strips of paper measuring approximately 3cm by 15cm and show the children how to fix them together to make long paper chains. Decide how long the chains need to be for your room and then measure the chains you make. Have fun counting the number of links in the chain.
• Make snowflakes with the older children. Fold a square of paper diagonally and then into smaller and smaller triangles. Holding the closed point of the final triangle, cut shapes into the edges of the paper and then open out into a snowflake. Talk about the shapes and sizes as you work. Try again, starting with a circle of paper to create a different effect.