This is the number that represents nothing and thereby has the lease value and by its very nature remains unseen in any concrete or 3D format. However, without a sense of nothing one cannot acquire a true understanding of any numerical value described by our numerical symbols 1 to 9 or within the base ten system of place value.

A Poem About Nothing?!
Have you felt what nothing feels like?
What no-thing is…..,is not easy to describe!
It is not like my grumbling tummy – empty and needing more.
It’s not like Mr. Nobody who slams the kitchen door.
It’s not found in a place where there should be something – that was there before.
Like when the crumbs in the bottom of the cookie jar say there are no more!
Like the bare trees in winter with their leaves upon the floor,
It’s not like sweet nothings whispered in my ear.
It’s not like a silence that brings up my fear.
It’s not like when something is missing and I feel very sad.
Like when my birthday card from Grandma doesn’t come through the door.
Or an absence of knowing what something is for.
Nothing is only in the places where there could be something ……
Like another line for this poem…..
The author believes that young children can understand levels of language far beyond their capacity for spoken expression. To help young children gain an interest and understanding of more advanced spoken language the author suggests that the speed and dictionof the words and phrases needs to be slow, clear and repeated within a rhythmical format. An additional method of presentation for poetry and prose can be to present one element on the first day and then the first two elements on the second day etc. until the poem is complete. Thus the above poem could take ten days to complete on this progressive system of daily repetition and extension.
• A curved line that comes back to meet itself is associated with all circular shapes and enclosures. When a continuous line has to stop when it meets itself it creates an enclosure with nothing in side. This drawing activity can be used to intoduce the numerical symbol of 0 and its use as a symbol of nought/nothing.
• One continuous line that returns to its starting point will create one round shape.
These shapes look like balloons and similarly have nothing inside of them.
• Circular shapes can be interesting to find and explore and sometimes they can be related to the concept of not being countable. Droplets of water and bubbles floating in the air can be seen as circular 0 shapes that dissapear into nothing. The round shape of an egg remains unaccountable in terms of ‘one chick’ untill the round shell shape is broken and replaced with the emergence of one live chick. This living story of a chick emerging form an egg offers an exciting range of numerical concepts e.g. a whole egg = 0 just a time of waiting, until a live chick hatches out of it, then we see the one to one relationship between eggs and subsequent chicks. The egg that fails to hatch remains of no value, and if on a rare occasion two twin chicks hatch from a single egg the number story goes on a step further.
• Draw a picture or pattern made only with circular shapes or Draw a pattern of circles by drawing around round objects e.g plates and saucers of different sizes.
• Have a collection of sealed egg boxes containing different numbers of eggs (or balls) and two empyy boxes. Find and match the two empty boxes.
[This activity can be continued for each number one through to twelve. Other variations of the game can involve finding matching pairs – two egg boxes with the same number of eggs in them or identifying the number of eggs in each box by weight and presentng them in order of lightest to heaviest and self-correcting the result by looking at the correct progressive number of eggs in each box. The activities can be made harder if ping-pong balls are used instead of eggs and easier if heavy quality billiard balls are used instead of eggs.]
• Find a see through container (with nothing inside) that has one or more circular sides and paint on a circular nought symbol. Look through the container to see the nought shaped decoration.
• The bubble that floats in the liquid within a spirit-level can be associated with nothing. When this bubble is in the central position it indicates that there is no imbalance or tilt. Getting the spirit-level to indicate a perfect horizontal or vertical position can require some skill. A perfectly flat surface has no slope and therefore does not induce things to roll on it as they would on a slopping surface, similarly a vertical upright post or a plumb-line has no angle of lean. Many games and explorative activities can be developed from working with a spirit-level.

Traditional folk Songs :-
• Scarlet Ribbons This song describes a mother hearing her childs prayers in which the child asks God for some scarlet ribbons. Sadly all the shops are closed and the mother fails to find and scarlet ribbons to leave as the answer to the prayer. However, God does answer the prayer……..

• There’s a hole in my bucket Dear Lizzer, Dear Lizzer, there’s a hole in my bucket Dear Lizzer a Hole!
Well fix it! Dear Georgey, Dear Georgy, Dear Georgey,