Counting Collections: Unbelievably Easy to Implement and Lots of Fun
Reflections by Alicia Corpe from Goodway Nursery School
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I went into the Counting Collections training in September 2023, having no idea about the programme but knew that as a school, we wanted to do something new with maths.
We like using the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Early Years Toolkit to look at the research behind why we do what we do in school, so when the opportunity to be part of the trial for Counting Collections came up, we jumped at the chance!
What Actually is Counting Collections?
Counting Collections is exactly what it says on the tin - it’s a collection of cool stuff for kids to count!
We have plastic sandwich boxes filled with different amounts of items, some have the same items in, some boxes have different objects in.
Children choose their box or ‘collection’ and decide how they are going to count it out, e.g. onto a tray or into a pot.
They do the counting and then mark make to show their total number.
The EEF had already approved research into Counting Collections for reception-aged children but the writers of the programme, Dr Catherine Grifton and Dr Marie Joubert, from the University of Nottingham, wanted to see if the programme would work for younger children.
Goodway Nursery School took part in the initial research trial along with a number of private day nurseries and maintained nursery schools and learned how to use Counting Collections.
Training and Tips
The training consisted of four sessions, a mixture of face-to-face and virtual, looking at some quite in-depth theory behind how our little learners count and how we can help them.
Little tips like modelling saying the number when counting exactly how it should be, e.g. “One, Two, Three” instead of stretching the words out ”Ooonnnneee, Twwwwwwooo, Threeeee”, and using the useful learning trajectories that the university have designed for different areas of counting, were instantly useful for both me and my colleagues.
Implementation
I started experimenting with the boxes after the first training session; still a bit skeptical about having lots of boxes of interesting things out in the classroom.
Sure enough, the collections were way too tempting and the children did lots of transporting objects around the entire nursery as well as to their own houses!
But, the children were really, really interested in exploring the boxes and really wanted to practise counting. They also loved spending time with a grown up doing an activity.
I carried on practising and got better and better at incorporating different areas of number into my small group sessions. I found that Counting Collections works really well as a focus activity during continuous provision time and also lends itself to working both inside and outside with children.
I put together a little basket with three of the Counting Collections boxes, a number line to 10, a cat dish, and a mini clipboard with pencil and paper. This allowed me to be completely mobile, anywhere in nursery!
Very quickly I learnt how to move through the different functions- asking the children to subitise (guess) how many items there are in the box, counting out, comparing which boxes have more/less items and also looking at how numbers are made up of other numbers.
The best thing I learnt is that Counting Collections suits every child- you can just modify the activity to support any ability.
The practitioners taking part in the study had a visit from Dr Marie every month to see how we were getting on and to see how Counting Collections worked on the ground.
I think the overwhelming finding was children having fun, smiling, laughing and really enjoying maths. That’s not how I remember maths lessons at school and is so lovely to see!
Sharing the Love for Counting Collections!
Dr Gripton, Dr Joubert and I presented the initial findings of the research during the British Society for Research into Learning Maths (BSRLM) Conference in November 2023.
Presenting in front of adults is infinitely scarier than a room full of three-year-olds, but I think it is so important to share how this simple programme can support learning maths so effectively.
Throughout the course of this academic year (2023/24), we have been working on adding Counting Collections into our own planning and making it part of what we do at Goodway.
It has been so easy to implement that through the HEART Midlands Stronger Practice Hub, we decided to share with as many PVIs and childminders as we could!
Together with my colleague, Izzie Darby, Assistant Head at Castle Vale Nursery School, we designed an accessible online training course of our own. The University of Nottingham very kindly allowed us to use all of their training materials and resources.
We had 30 settings sign up for the training and all attended every session, which we are really proud of. Hopefully these settings can take Counting Collections and make it work for their own children!
Blog author: Alicia Corpe, Teacher and DSL, Goodway Nursery School
Goodway Nursery School has been supporting children and families in the local community since 1939.
“During this time, we have taught generations of families, as well as welcoming new families each year.
“We are an inclusive happy school and are proud of our school and of our diverse school community.”