Numberblocks support materials

Numberblocks, first broadcast in January 2017, is a pre-school BBC television series aimed at introducing children to early number.

Snappy animation and loveable characters combine with engaging storylines to gently introduce concepts of number to support early mathematical understanding.

The NCETM materials use each episode as a launch pad. They are designed to assist Early Years and also Year 1 practitioners to confidently move on from an episode, helping children to bring the numbers and ideas to life in the world around them.

The materials are designed to be used in conjunction with the Numberblocks episodes. They highlight and develop the key mathematical ideas that are embedded in the programmes. Each set of materials comes in the form of a PowerPoint file, and includes the following features:

The Practitioner Notes consist of three elements:

1. The episode description summarises the story and the key things that happen
2. The maths in the episode explains the key mathematical concepts that are featured in the episode
3. Using mathematical language – because it is important that practitioners model precise and correct mathematical language, there are suggestions of key sentences that you might use and have repeated; they provide a language structure to connect each mathematical idea to different contexts. Children will initially use their own language to talk about the mathematics, and will develop correct and precise language if this is modelled by adults.

Talk and Discuss Together provides a set of slides, designed to be used with children after they have watched the episode. They provide a stimulus to talk about what children have noticed, and draw their attention to key aspects of the mathematics. There are often notes for each slide, indicated by a blue dot in the bottom right-hand corner. The notes give ideas for supporting mathematical talk and engaging children in practical activity; some slides have animation to illustrate mathematical concepts.

Enabling Environments gives suggestions for extending the mathematics into the wider Early Years environment where children engage in meaningful activity and explore mathematical concepts.

Learning Together in Year 1 extends the mathematics into Y1. The slides are designed to be used within the context of whole class teaching for mastery.

An overview of each series, their storylines, the mathematics addressed, and links to the episodes on iPlayer, is available as a downloadable PDF. Please be aware that episodes may not always be available on iPlayer:

BBC Numberblocks episodes can be found on the CBeebies Numberblocks page.