Tag: zoltan dienes

Maths with intention – the new guide will save you hours of planning

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

I created this because I kept seeing the same thing…

Educators know maths matters, but feel unsure about the how.

How do you teach maths in a play-based room? How do you document it using EYLF language? How do you move beyond counting to real understanding?

So I put everything I know into one guide.

Maths With Intention

Early Years Maths Through Active Learning

Maths With Intention: Early Numeracy Guide

Ages 3–5 EYLF 2.0 aligned 67-page PDF Play-based

The play-based maths guide Australian early childhood educators have been asking for.

Most educators working under the EYLF know that mathematics belongs in their program. What they struggle with is the how. How do you move beyond rote counting? How do you document mathematical thinking in play? How do you talk about subitising or spatial reasoning in a learning story? Maths With Intention answers exactly those questions — practically, beautifully, and without a single worksheet in sight.

This is a 67-page guide for early childhood educators, kindergarten teachers, and ECT students who want to teach maths the way the Early Years Learning Framework actually intends: through play, movement, language, and intentional teaching moments that turn everyday play into powerful mathematical learning.

What’s inside

  • My story — how I taught my son to count to 1000 using Montessori and Zaitsev methods, and what it taught me about how children really build number sense
  • What is early numeracy? — number sense, pattern, measurement, spatial reasoning, data sense and mathematical language explained in plain English
  • Early maths and the EYLF 2.0 — exactly how mathematical thinking maps onto Outcome 4 (Confident and Involved Learners) and Outcome 5 (Effective Communicators), with sentence starters for your observations and learning stories
  • Theoretical background — Dienes, Vygotsky, Piaget, Howard Gardner and Zaitsev, made practical for the play-based room
  • Counting songs at circle time — my three go-to songs and the movement strategies that make them stick
  • Go-to room resources — how to use the number line and 100-chart as active teaching tools, every day
  • My favourite group activities — 12 ready-to-run games for circle time and small groups
  • First Nations Mathematics — embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in early maths, drawing on the QCAA Mathematics Storytelling resource and the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning framework
  • Quick reference: writing a maths observation — sentence starters you can use the very next time you sit down to document
  • Language Guide: What to Say When — questions and prompts for counting, comparing, building, problem-solving and extending the confident young mathematician

Who this is for

  • Early childhood educators working under the EYLF 2.0 (Belonging, Being and Becoming)
  • Kindergarten and preschool teachers in Australia, New Zealand, and any play-based setting
  • Educators studying for or holding a Bachelor’s or Master’s of Early Childhood Education
  • Educational leaders building pedagogical practice across a centre
  • Relief ECTs, nannies, and family day care educators who want to teach maths confidently in any room
  • University students on Teaching Practice (TP) placements

Why this guide is different

Australian early childhood education is strongly anti-worksheet, but most educators have never seen what intentional maths teaching actually looks like in a play-based room. This guide shows you — with real classroom photos, real children, real language, and the EYLF-aligned wording you can lift straight into your documentation.

It’s grounded in 18+ years of teaching experience, a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Early Childhood Education, and certified Zaitsev teacher training. It’s designed to be read once, then opened weekly for the rest of your career.

Format: 67-page A4 PDF. Print, laminate, or read on screen. Yours to keep forever.

About Storykate

I’m Kate — early childhood teacher, university educator, certified Zaitsev teacher since 2007, and the educator behind Storykate. I’m passionate about giving Australian educators practical, evidence-based, beautifully designed resources that make the EYLF feel achievable on a Tuesday afternoon.

You can find me on YouTube at @Storykate.

Get your guide here https://payhip.com/b/IcLXG

Sorting and classifying games with blocks (easy ideas for preschool thinking skills)

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

I thought we had exhausted every possible game with Dienes blocks. Turns out we had barely scratched the surface.

Dienes blocks are a very flexible tool for developing a child’s thinking. To me, it’s hard to find another toy with this kind of range. We thought we had played every possible game and hit a creative wall. However, there were dozens more ideas we hadn’t tried yet.

Move into the house

For this game, you’ll need a set of Dienes blocks, paper, and markers. Draw a house with two rooms. In one room live all the small shapes, in the other all the large ones. Make sure you show the size with simple symbols.

You can also sort the house by colour. In the red room live all the red shapes, in the yellow room the yellow ones, and so on.

Once your child is comfortable with a single-storey house, move on to a two-storey house. On the first floor (show them clearly) live the small blocks, on the second all the big ones. In the first entrance live the yellow shapes, in the second the blue, in the third the red.

And then you can build a three-storey house. Three floors, four entrances. Help each “resident” find their room.

Find the way out of the forest

For this game, you’ll need markers, a large sheet of paper such as A3, and your Dienes blocks. Draw a forest, with a clearing in the centre, and paths leading out in different directions. On each path, draw colour symbols (yellow, blue, red).

Let your child help the blocks (or little piglets, if you like) find their way out of the forest. Explain that, for example, blue ones can only travel along the path marked with blue.

Now add a “not” sign by crossing out the blue circle. When your child tries to take a blue block along that path, explain that it can’t go there. That path is not for blue. But it is open to anything that is not blue. Try sending red and yellow blocks along it.

Once they get the idea, you can add more features—big and small, thick and thin, different shapes. You can also add more paths to make the challenge richer.

Good luck!

Get Dienes blocks here

https://amzn.to/4eVV3VY

Watch my video about attribute blocks