Maths by Month – June (updated 2021)

The final month of the school year is almost upon us, and as usual, this heralds the last installment in this year’s series of posts designed to explore the Operation Maths topics on a month-by-month basis.

As we move towards the end of this challenging school year, rest assured that Edco Primary Maths and the Operation Maths blog will continue to support teachers, schools and families, via:

• Dear Family, our ever-expanding series of posts, aimed at parents and families, supporting children’s mathematical development at home
• Digging Deeper, our series of posts, aimed at teachers, providing deeper insights into the underlying theory, approaches and pedagogies behind the various maths topics
• About Operation Maths posts, for teachers who want to find out more about the Operation Maths program itself.

Book lists not finalised yet? Please consider Operation Maths, Number Facts, Bua na Cainte, Exploring Spelling, Let’s Talk Literacy, Explore with Me and My Learner ID. Click on the links for more information and to view sample pages from each program and/or contact your local Edco reps for samples.

HINT: To ensure you don’t miss out on any future blog-posts, please subscribe to the Operation Maths blog via email, on the top right hand of this page.
Another way to keep up to date an all new maths-related developments is to like/follow the Edco Primary Maths page on Facebook and/or Twitter 

Operation Maths for Junior Infants to Sixth Class:

• Junior Infants: will be reinforcing their understanding of the numbers 0-5 via the topic of money.
• Senior Infants: Further Counting and Numeration, Comparing and Ordering and Combining and Partitioning of numbers to 10; patterns (different arrays of the same number, colour patterns, number patterns, odd and even numbers); time (one-hour intervals).
• First Class: Weight; Patterns; 3-D objects (in particular, connecting their understanding of 3-D objects to their understanding of 2-D shapes)
• Second Class:  More Place Value to 199; Area; Lines and Angles (revisiting half turns and quarter turns)
• Third to sixth classes: Operation Maths 3-6 is specifically structured so that the programme can be completed by the end of May, thus covering all of the topics in advance of the standardised testing.
  Depending on your own specific school circumstances, you may find yourself looking for inspiration to fill the maths lessons from now until the end of month. Whether you’re an Operation Maths user or not, there are a whole suite of suitable ideas for June maths on this blog post.

Teachers of Infants to Second Class: if you choose to administer the Operation Maths End of June Assessments, don’t forget to check out the Excel Record Spreadsheets to accompany the assessments in the Assessment Booklets; if you have any suggestions for how to improve these, please leave them here.

To access lists of relevant links and online resources (eg lessons, videos, games etc), navigate towards the end of the relevant Dear Family posts, for a whole suite of suggestions, organised into approximate class levels.

Don’t forget that integrated with your digital Operation Maths pupil books, are numerous custom-made digital resources to support each maths topic. Just click any of the hyperlinks while viewing the digital book to bring you direct to the relevant resource.

TIP! If there are any digital resources for a particular page, they will also be briefly given and described in the footer of that page (both print and digital books). 

HINT: If you are new to Operation Maths this year or have changed class level, be sure to check out the Quick Start Guide to the Operation Maths books and the companion Quick Start Guide to the Operation Maths Digital Resources. Don’t forget that Operation Maths also has you covered for planning whether you’re teaching a single class or multi-class. 

Other suggestions for June:

• We have a separate post entitled Maths for June where there is a whole suite of ideas, that are ideal as end-of-year maths, whether you’re an Opeation Maths user of not.
• Maths outside: not only is this typically the time of the year when teachers are bringing their classes outdoors for learning, but this yer we are being encouraged to be outside as much as possible.
  • Outdoor Classroom Day was May 20 2021. This global event promotes the use of the outdoors to teach, explore and learn. If you missed this day, you might like to do an Outdoor Classroom Day in June instead. There are lots of resources with suggestions for all subject areas, including maths, https://outdoorclassroomday.com/.
  • For more ideas for outdoor maths you could also check out:
    • the Maths Around Us activity ideas in your Operation Maths book
    • the Maths Around Us videos accessible at https://www.edcolearning.ie/
    • this post, Maths fun in the sun
    • Stem Smaointe 8 from the PDST