The Power and Joy of Hands-on Mathematics

We want every Australian student to love maths by using materials to both make sense of it and genuinely enjoy the sequential journey of learning it. We want to hear cheers at the start of maths sessions. We want to see materials (not worksheets and not click-technologies) in every primary classroom engaged in mathematics. We want to hear students reasoning with each other and thinking out loud (not silence) and see students recording their mathematical findings while using materials (rather than memorising rote-based rules). Ultimately, we aim to grow a generation of children who, as adults, will still love maths. 

 

To achieve this, Top Ten was founded and is still owned entirely by Australian numeracy coaches and experienced primary teachers to support fellow teachers with the huge task of day-by-day planning for excellent maths lessons. We created, then tried and tested sequential hands-on units in Australian classrooms for ten years. Our units include photographs of classrooms in action during materials-based lessons, daily modelling by numeracy coaches and maths leaders, and student work samples for each open-ended task. Our aim is to ensure that primary teachers have enough time and energy to deliver engaging and high-impact maths lessons that target their students' points-of-need. To do this, we remove a significant portion of the burden of planning from scratch and the time-consuming search for engaging lessons that genuinely work in real classrooms. We grow each teacher's confidence and repertoire by making numeracy coaches' classroom modelling and coaching accessible to every teacher every day. This is achieved through illustrative photographs of lessons in action, student work samples and the ongoing practical professional learning provided through each unit plan. 

 

Our goal is for every Australian student to fall in love with maths and become numerate, and to assist (in whichever way a team prefers to use our planning units and resources) every primary teacher to achieve this. 

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In total, there are 900 hands-on open-ended tasks, all organised into developmentally-sequenced units; over 500 materials-based lessons for the early years and 400 real-life lessons for years 3-6. To maximise your time, every lesson includes:

• photographs of classroom modelling and student work samples

• warm-up games and an engaging hook or tune-in element 

• a specific learning intention and lesson-specific maths vocabulary highlighted at the start of each lesson 

• success criteria within the formative assessment cross-checks linked to each unit 

• questioning and feedback tips, as well as misconception alerts 

• pre-planned enabling and extending prompts for ongoing in-class intervention and extension within every open-ended (low-floor high-ceiling) session. 

 

Please visit our school feedback and student gain results page, and feel free to download the sample packs on our early years and numeracy library pages to share and try the sample lessons with your teams.