Primary teachers build on the informal knowledge children bring to school and begin teaching essential early number concepts. Young children are active learners and learn best in problem-solving situations where they have opportunities to investigate and construct their own ideas. Teachers continue asking questions which helps students make connections with prior knowledge, everyday life situations, manipulatives and other mathematical topics. Number sense begins to develop as children learn about the meaning of number words and other vocabulary, quantity, symbols and relationships numbers have to each other in our base-ten numeration system. Understanding how our number system works leads to greater success in learning operations and math topics.
