The Number Box is a multi sensory teaching programme and maths resource. It was designed for those children who struggle with maths for one of several reasons. Dyslexic children find sequential skills, organisation and spatial operations in maths more challenging, and require resources and patient teaching. Children who have receptive and expressive language difficulties may take longer to understand and use the complex maths vocabulary. Dyscalculic children have great difficulty understanding the concept of number at all and may stay working with the resources and programme of The Number Box through the Infant school and on into Junior school. To understand number concepts, it is vital that children have no gaps in their understanding. The aim of The Box is to allow children to access the daily maths lesson in class with continued support of practical resources, whilst working through their individual programme on The Box in 1:1 time, to ensure that they have a complete understanding of all the stages. Children need to be encouraged to become independent learners, and should have an opportunity every session to use the maths vocabulary to express how much they understand and what they have learned. Children must be enabled to say what they do not understand, and ask for it to be explained or practised again. It is important that children manage the materials themselves – opening up, selecting materials, and packing the resources away after each session. This avoids ‘learned helplessness’. The Progression of skills detailed on The Record of Achievement booklets allows children to work in very small steps through a complete programme. This begins with the recognition of numbers through to knowledge of number concepts up to tens and units. It also includes small steps for teaching and consolidating concepts of time, measurement, money and shape. It has been based on the principles laid out in The National Numeracy Strategy and can be used from P levels up to level 2B. The Number Box is paper free, using instead a white board and pen, and wipeable work boards. There is no need for teacher planning, as the system is self perpetuating following the targets set out on the Record of Work books. Recording is simple – individual recording booklets are included for daily comments on successes and difficulties, and these provide a comprehensive record of progress over time. The Number Box contains sufficient resources to work with 1 or 2 children, or for support and demonstration to a small group. Additional resources can easily be purchased to allow it to be used with small groups. The Instruction Manual gives easy to follow, fully illustrated, steps enabling TAs or parents to work with a child. Instructions for number concepts need to be followed in order, while the other maths topics can be used to correspond to the current class maths topic. Each page of the Instruction Manual gives vocabulary for the TA to use with the child, and for the child to use himself as his confidence grows. The contents are: - 1 Fully illustrated, 26 page Instruction Guide 1 16 page Additional Activities Booklet 1 Box containing magnetic numbers 0-10 1 Box containing 50 counting cubes 1 Box containing 50 coins 1 Box containing 8 Solid Geometrical Shapes 1 Clock Face 1 "Magic" Tape Measure and Instructions 1 Number Base Board 1 Geometrical Shapes Base Board 1 Hundred Squares Board 1 Set Number Cards 0-10 1 Set Number Cards 0-20 1 Set Symbols Cards × – + = ÷. 1 Set Geometrical Shapes Cards 1 Numbers Formation Strip 10 Tables Lines 1-10 1 Counting Sleeve 4 Dice 1 Penny Board for tens and units 20 Record of Achievement Covers 40 Record of Work Sheets 20 Treasury Tags 1 Wipe-clean Whiteboard & Drywipe Pen
