Maths investigation box
Maths Discovery Box
This is a super idea and doesn’t require anything to be purchased.
Take a large box or bag and go around your house looking for some of these items.
Then lay some out on the table or on a tray as an exploration area:
Play, learn, investigate, explore, experiment.
Here are some of the items in the photograph, they are suggestions only, find what you have around your house. Maths is right around us and maximising the opportunities around us provides the best learning for children… inclusively… there is something here for everyone.
• Basket with numbered pegs for counting and ordering
• Bowl of conkers/ chestnuts (replace with any natural material e.g. pebbles, leaves, flowers)
• Basket of assorted shells in various colours, patterns, shapes and sizes for sorting and counting
• Ball of play dough
• Tray of Brailled or large print numbers
• Pencil/Black Pen and black lined notebook/Perkins Braille
Machine titled Maths Discovery
• Plastic food tray with coloured sand/scented salts for writing
numbers in, counting objects into etc
• Pipe cleaners for threading beads onto etc
• Teddy bears
• Egg carton
• Muffin tin
• Paper cake cases
• Empty wooden bowl
• Measuring tape
• Lollipop sticks and waxing sticks
• Textured disks made using the circular ends of a CD pack.
Discs covered in textures. Or, cut card circles and add textures
to them
• Variety of interesting objects to explore (embroidery ring,
spider’s web, Icing bag, rings, plastic tubing, jumbo clips
• Furry pencil case with glass beads inside
• Magnetic board with magnets
• Ice cube tray
• Bricks of different sizes
• Boxes (variety of shapes and sizes) filled with beads, Lego,
coloured, wooden shapes, bells, felt shapes etc, place in a
wooden box for the child to choose from
• Russian nesting dolls
• Stacking beakers
On the top of the box, textured circles are attached with Velcro. The child can have fun feeling the textures, pulling them off as they find the matching pair.
