Number Agents

This year has been a major year of discovery in me.  Play based learning has completely changed the way I think about learning and new entrants.  Learning has become flexible, individualised, fluid and firmly student driven.  Devices as something to consume have disappeared, they are only used if used to share or transform our learning.  I feel myself more relaxed, less burdened by a timetable and less bothered by the mess that play based brings. Number agents was an approach that I developed before play based learning, however it has strong correlations and similarities.  Number agents is an imaginative and playful approach that places the child in role, there is negotiation and defining of roles just as the children would do themselves.   The teacher is also in role, is an equal in the play and while the roles are strongly defined, they are also negotiated within the play.  Basically when children step back into agency, they step back into the pla...

I can't say enough about how much using visual images has strengthened agency this year.  The questioning skills and problem posing skills of children have increased hugely.  They are brilliant for helping children to see maths in the world around them. I love what this has added to my programme so much I have put a set of 23 photos together that I think will work beautifully for anyone trying my approach. I have added it to my TPT store here. What questions can you pose from this picture for further investigation?

I have put together a pack of my favourite maths games.  These all use everyday classroom materials and are based on strengthening number sense. I have them for sale in my TPT store and they can be found here. This is an example of one of the games...all based on cool games that I have modified and used over time.

A lot of the games I use through agency come out of my head and just grow and morph and change.  If you are after some ideas I have put together a very small pack of games here.

My approach to mathex in number agency has been inspired by a senior version I used to use with older children. Usually as the agents get more independent and better at working in multi-level group I will add the challenge of mathex. This approach is usually introduced by the brain drainer (who as yet does not have a puppet form...just me in role as yet)  I am on the search for a brain drainer - or perhaps a riddler to take on this role. Mathex is quick and once agents get used to the approach it flows beautifully.  I design the sheets to complement the problems the agents have encountered during the week.  It is great for some just in time teaching as you see the common gaps each group has. This approach is also brilliant for developing team work, growth mindset and comprehension. I have been working on creating a set to go along with my number agent book.  At this time of the year it can be incredibly hard, however have designed a starter set with two mathex s...

During Maths PLD this year we came across an approach called maths eyes.  The website can be found here I am a massive fan of Jo Boaler and love her work.  So this idea of maths eyes linked in beautifully with the research I had done. I absolutely can not take credit for this idea, but it has had lovely spin off effects for agency. This year I have used maths eyes separately from agency, just as quick activity that can help to develop children's visual problem solving.  I have been giving some thought to how it will work in agency, but did not want to implement it till I had a full handle on how it could work. Quotes from Jo Boaler's work on visual maths I love.... Visual mathematics is an important part of mathematics for its own sake and new brain research tells us that visual mathematics even helps students learn numerical mathematics. - Mathematics is a subject that allows for precise thinking, but when that precise thinking is combined with creativity, ope...

This is cowgirl calculation, I am excited for her to arrive from Amazon as I have big plans for her.  Rather than be a villain this puppet is destined to be a professor.  She will help us to nut out solutions to problems and help us to understand strategies by reinforcing the talk moves.  I find the puppets are such a great hook for children and really engages them in the process.   The talk moves image below is not mine, just popping it there for anyone not quite up with what the talk moves are.