ABSTRACT

Although we encourage playfulness and creativity in most other aspects of young children’s development we rarely do so in relation to mathematics. We certainly don’t readily make jokes about maths, and yet humour and fun are vital elements of young children’s learning.As adults, we revel in children’s playful teasing and clowning. If they suggest that there is a lion under the table we engage with the idea – asking what we should do. Should we offer the lion some food (as happens in The Tiger who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr, 2006)? Should we be very quiet, or perhaps make a loud noise in the hope of frightening the lion away? We enter

we count them to check – we do not like jokes about numbers. Some of this reluctance to allow playfulness in relation to mathematics springs from the methods that have traditionally been used to teach the subject in schools – with an emphasis on facts and accuracy. This is not to say that accurate answers do not have a place but that accuracy is only important in some contexts. If I want to get to the moon, I’d better be very accurate and if I’m sharing sweets with a sibling I’ll need to make sure that I get a fair share – which might mean that I should get more! Context is vital and so often we expect children to rehearse and practise mathematical ideas without any real purpose. Making it real (as discussed in Chapter 3) makes all the difference.