Shared learning in the nursery

This example shows David representing his ideas about items sold (subtracted) in their pretend café, showing that he had ‘read’ Shereen’s intentions as she had represented her ideas about a café on a whiteboard (see link below).

David used the same strategies and a similar layout to communicate his ideas.
Drawing himself and Shereen at the café, David made small marks, explaining them as ‘two cakes, coffees, hot coffees, cold coffees, crisps’. He asked Shereen to ‘visit’ his café and she gave him an order for one cake and a cold coffee. Rubbing out items to signify their removal David said, ‘here you go. I have to rub them away now ‘cos they’re gone from the café’.

• See Shereen’s subtraction here

Taxonomy - this example

Calculations: children’s own methods:

• Symbolic operations with small numbers:

• Explorations with symbols

Gallery 7: The emergence of graphic symbols and texts in pretend play

Gallery 8: Children's graphic symbols and texts in self-initiated contexts.