Molly Ireland

Research Assistant, Durham University Maths Department.

Inspired by a discussion about concentric circles, some nursery practitioners encouraged the children at a nursery to create some concentric circles. Throughout the process they talked about the features of concentric circles together.

Teacher: What do we have on the floor?
“Circle”
“One”
Teacher: Does a circle have a centre point?
“There” A child takes a rock and places it at the centre of the circle
Teacher: Is it a concentric circle?
This got a mixture of answers, some yes and some no. The children who said no, said the circle wasn’t a concentric circle “because only one circle”.
Teacher: What could we do to make it a concentric circle?
“Put more there”

The children then worked to add more circles inside the first one to create a set of concentric circles.

A photo of children measuring the diameter of the concentric circles they have made.

To read more about the childrens exploration of concentric circles please see our article on concentric circles in nature.

You may also enjoy

An image of different toys on the floor groupped into three categories and then enclosed by two circles to make a venn diagram. The categories are the ones described in the paragraph above.

Collecting Data using Toys

Children might enjoy gathering data when playing with different toys around the classroom. Click on the sections below to see some examples and ideas of how ...

data
experimenting
toys
ramps
A photo of leaves on a table, sorted into groups by their colours.

Collecting Data from Nature

A great way for children to learn about statistics is for them to collect data from the world around them. Click on the sections below to see some examples a...

data
experimenting
nature
A child having their height measured by lying on a sheet of paper with a number scale.

Children Collecting Data about Themselves

Children can find statistics particularly engaging when they use graphs to learn about themselves. Click on the sections below to see some examples and ideas...

data
experimenting
An Apollonian gasket, which is a fractal made of circles of various sizes filling the space within one large circle.

Shapes in Shapes

Many children like drawing different shapes, and there can be some entertaining drawing tasks that they can do by drawing shapes in shapes.

geometry
shape
fractals
A child using one circle to get three reflections of the circle, using two mirrors placed at 90 degrees from each other.

Mirrors

Many children enjoy experimenting with mirrors in the nursery, and these children were experimenting with two mirrors placed at 90 degrees from each other. I...

symmetry
geometry