50 sequential early years units, including 500 brand new,
hands-on, open-ended tasks with pre-planned extension and support for every session
The Early Years Pack in action at our primary schools
Sample Packs for Teams
Sample Pack
9 of the 500 sequential hands-on lessons
Contents of the Pack
Pedagogy of the Units
Please note: Many of the hyperlinks in these documents, particularly to the linked
templates, will not work until schools have access to the complete package.
Complete Unit Samples - 3 of the 50 hands-on unit plans
Place Value Unit 2
Counting with one-to-one correspondence
1 of 5 sequential units focused on counting and subitising for the first term of school
Addition Unit 4
All the ways to make the numbers 3 to 9
(trusting the count)
1 of 15 units focused on addition and subtraction strategies
Place Value Unit 12
Partitioning two-digit numbers into tens and ones
1 of 16 sequential
place value units
Please note: It is important for teachers to know that our sequential units are intended as a significant support for planning, not as a strict or prescriptive approach. For example, we want teachers to continue to use other high-impact lessons that have worked well for them in the past, and other excellent resources. We have tried to create the best menu of rich learning experiences and collection of open-ended lessons for each concept, however, we want teachers to selectively choose the point-of-need sessions for their class that most powerfully speak to their passion as a teacher and motivate more use of hands-on maths. We would not want teams to use every lesson within a unit. Instead, we recommend that teachers selectively choose lessons from the sequential units that best match their current learning intention and students' next learning goals, as well as students' interests, and sessions that the teacher feels confident in being able to deliver.
Please also note: Many hyperlinks in these documents, particularly to the linked templates, will not work until schools have access to the complete package.
Samples of the implementation support documents, which work alongside the units and diagnostic strategy-focused assessments
Implementation Support PowerPoint
Critical Learning Goals by Year Level
Overview of Units - by Concept
Overview of Units - by Year Level
Implementation
Tips
Overview
Helping students learn and love maths from the very first day of school up to year 3 with sequential hands-on units for every critical skill throughout the early years. Pack inclusions:
Our numeracy leaders know that teachers have extremely limited time constraints - because we are teachers too. Accordingly, our Early Years Mathematics Package ensures that your teams have everything they need at their fingertips to deliver three years of sequential, open-ended and rich learning experiences that prioritise hands-on mathematics.
Packages to support your teams
Created by Australian numeracy coaches and experienced primary teachers in early years classrooms
Comprehensive units to assist teachers and teams to plan with thorough step-by-step modelling of sequential lessons that use materials to teach maths. The complete package includes over 2000 pages of brand new open-ended lessons and rich multiple-entry-point (low-floor, high-ceiling) tasks that all involve engaging hands-on maths (no worksheets).
All units use photographs of numeracy coaches modelling with materials, lessons in action in real classrooms and detailed student work samples (over 1000 photographs). These visual examples comprehensively support teachers to deliver materials-based mathematics instruction with confidence. In particular, the photographs provide teams with an in-depth insight into how to model critical numeracy concepts with materials, including questioning and feedback tips, as well as misconception alerts and how to address these. Support, mid-range and extension student work samples also illustrate examples of what excellent work looks like for each lesson.
Extending and enabling prompts for daily in-class extension and intervention
Each lesson includes extension planning through a series of extending prompts for advanced students who crave an extra challenge. This includes one, two or three pre-planned ways to increase the challenge level of each task. The first extending prompt also caters for mid-range students who show confidence and achieve the first level of each learning intention. This enables teachers to regularly and flexibly provide in-class extension.
Scaffolded enabling prompts support students with developmental gaps through in-class intervention. This includes modified recording templates and visual aids that remove literacy and working memory barriers from maths sessions. Support variations often adapt the task to target critical skills first, such as subitising and partitioning.
Alignment to Australian and all state curriculums, learning intentions for each session and ongoing professional learning that is immediately relevant to the classroom that day
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Direct links to the Australian Curriculum, Western Australian Curriculum, Victorian Curriculum and NSW Maths Syllabus are copied at the start of each unit. These link the lessons that follow directly to the specific content and learning outcomes for each year level, and to our strategy-focused diagnostic and growth-mindset assessment options.
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Hyperlinked tables of contents at the start of each unit plan ensure teachers can navigate with speed and ease, providing an 'at-a-glance' overview of all lessons.
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Learning intentions and maths vocabulary are highlighted at the start of each lesson. These translate learning goals into student-friendly language and create a consistent maths language across all early years teams.
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Implementation support pack, including a step-by-step PowerPoint that provides easy-to-follow, practical tips for teachers of all confidence levels. Further PowerPoints are provided within the pack, with many more practical classroom-centred tips.
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Ongoing professional learning is provided through teaching tips and professional reading summaries at the start of each unit, providing hundreds of focused mini-PLs just in advance of teaching each concept – precisely when this professional learning will produce the most impact.
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Misconception alerts are highlighted within each unit and lessons at relevant points, in addition to photographs of numeracy coaches modelling with manipulatives in classrooms, questioning prompts and feedback dialogue within every session.
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All student recording templates and lesson templates are hyperlinked within the lesson plans, and easily organised into each unit’s folder, ready to print and use for students to record their thinking and working out alongside the materials.
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Warm-ups and engaging hooks
Engaging hooks launch every lesson by igniting students' love and excitement for maths, authentically linking the content to students' interests and lives. Tune-ins include YouTube clips, numeracy picture books, sets of images and real-life information that connects the maths of the lesson to the real world. Our sequential units have been created by veteran teachers with decades of experience in delivering that content to early years students. With the combination of real-life links and the consistent use of materials, we regularly receive feedback (and have seen it ourselves in our classrooms) that students start to genuinely love maths and look forward to it every day (with cheers replacing groans at the start of maths). Maths becomes a favourite subject, akin to P.E. and art, and for most students, not the minority.
There are over 100 warm-up games, integrated into the units, specifically focusing on each skill. Warm-ups front-load challenging concepts, develop number talk and mental maths strategies, and revise previous developmental steps to build fluency.
Diagnostic growth-mindset assessments that require students to reason, use strategies and show their mathematical thinking (not just click a box)
Diagnostic assessments that are user-friendly for the early years emphasise that students must show their strategies and mathematical thinking. Formula-driven spreadsheets then make data immediately actionable for teams by linking the highlighted points-of-need for their students directly back to the hands-on unit plans, providing multiple lesson options to target each gap and next learning goal.
Post-assessments automatically calculate growth and focus students on a growth-mindset, rather than raw scores, then can be used to further focus teaching and warm-ups. The package also includes a new one-to-one maths interview as a diagnostic assessment for entry to the first year of school, developed to provide practical and immediately usable data.
Formative assessments are integrated into the units, including regular exit tickets, cross-check templates with progressive learning goals and success criteria all pre-filled for every year level and developmental step.
Critical checkpoints and strategy staircases, developed in our pilot schools, focus each team on their year level’s big developmental steps and numeracy goals, forming a powerful sequence of learning. An easy-to-follow scope and sequence also guides teams as to the recommended timings for each unit, providing more time for student practice and mastery of the big ideas.