Ten Town is a character-based numeracy scheme, designed specifically for the early years. It combines online activities with a wide range of physical resources as well as printable support materials, all aligned to the EYFS.
King One is in charge of Ten Town and all the other characters have a reason why they face towards him or away from him. This gives children a ‘frame of reference’ for each number and helps reduce number reversal.
Ten Town was the Overall Winner for Music and Multimedia at the Practical Pre-School Awards 2013 and the scheme also receives excellent feedback from its users. Susie Cole, a nursery teacher at Brooke Priory School, says, “Ten Town is an amazing resource, the characters are interesting and capture the imagination of the children. It is a bright, fun way to introduce numbers to children.”
The scheme also offers the opportunity for cross curricular learning. Each character has a different theme that is linked to the EYFS framework. So, Freddie Four, the explorer, can be used to develop “Understanding the World” while ‘naughty’ Thelma Three can be used as an aid to PSED.
Every new subscribing school receives a free set of flash cards and wall friezes (worth £38). Teachwire readers can also receive a free A3 map and stickers by using the discount code TW16.
The “0 to 10” content
This is based around the island of Ten Town and contains a range of resources, including…
Animated Stories
These provide an enjoyable introduction to each character and also help to reinforce number formation and recognition. The animations include a number rhyme for each character that also aids formation. Here is a short montage of clips from the stories…
Animated Songs
All the characters have their own songs which are sung to well-know nursery tunes. The songs help to reinforce the value of each number.
Games and Activities
There are a wide variety of games based on the Ten Town characters which are designed to work towards specific ELGs while improving ICT skills. There are number tracing games, “more or less” games, “find the sets” activities and even Ten Town bingo!
Printable Support Materials
There are over 300 printable teaching resources, including practical lesson activities, consolidation sheets and certificates.
Ten Town TV
Ten Town’s very own TV channel, featuring a range of specially-made short films that expand on the cross curricular opportunities of Ten Town. Viewers can find out about recycling with James Strawbridge from the BBC series “It’s Not Easy Being Green” or go pond dipping with BBC wildlife presenter, Chris Howard. Here is a short montage of clips from Ten Town TV…
Additional resources
Ten Town offers a wide range of resources that can be used to compliment the online content. These include role play tabards, reward sticker packs, sing along CDs, playing cards and even Ten Town stamps - so you can set up your own Ten Town post office!
“I work in an Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ school, and have taught for 31 years, and I rate Ten Town higher than any other product I have used. Ten Town quite simply works.” Chris Baker, Edmondsley Primary School
10 to 20 content
This new online content introduces numbers up to 20 and incorporates reception class maths topics such as size, weight, capacity, position, distance,
volume, time, money, shapes and patterns as well as simple calculations. There is also the opportunity to introduce an MFL with Thierry Twenty the French baker, who makes the largest cakes in the world!
The content is based around Tia Ten, a famous Chinese TV chef. She invites King One, Tommy Two and their friends onto her television show to help them prepare food for a wonderful banquet. Each episode of Tia’s television show is an interactive animation in which the children have to complete challenges to move on to the next part of the story.
“The scheme is great! It is totally interactive and we use all the resources with the children. They love to act out the songs and stories of the Ten Town characters.” Amanda Jennings, Head of Foundation, St Mary’s Hampstead
Recently Ten Town launched a free activity on its YouTube channel called “Where’s Freddie Four?”. Each week Freddie Four will be in a new location and Children’s TV personality Alex Winters will present four fun facts about the country Freddie’s visiting.
You can find out all about Ten Town and “Where’s Freddie Four?” on our website www.tentown.co.uk You can also keep up-to-date with what’s going on in Ten Town via facebook and twitter.
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