Free Y4 maths worksheets: Visualise 3-D objects and make nets

Children need to spend time handling 3-D shapes and should be familiar with the terms ‘edge’, ‘face’ and ‘vertex’ (plural: ‘vertices’) when applied to 3-D shapes.

shape image

A range of boxes used for packaging such as chocolate boxes, tissue boxes etc, may be opened to see the nets used to construct them. (A net is the 2-D shape that must be cut out and folded to make a 3-D shape.

Children should make 3-D shapes from suitable materials such as straws and pipe cleaners (used to join the ends) or kits designed for the purpose.

In this way, they will be able to see how many of each 2-D shape are needed as faces for a 3-D shape (Eg. six squares are needed to make a cube; a square and four isosceles triangles are needed to make a square based pyramid.)

Many shapes can be made from cubes. Cubes that join together are helpful here, but non-joining cubes are very useful too.

Other properties of shapes will be discovered, such as ‘the number of faces of a prism is equal to two more than the number of edges on one of the end faces’.

Free Y4 maths worksheet: Visualise 3-D objects and make nets

Free Y4 maths worksheet: net of a cuboid

News: Can yuo raed tihs?

Cna yuo raed tihs? Msot polepe can!
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig? I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

This is interesting, especially on a day when the government states that an extra £30 million scheme is being introduced to help children with the dreaded dyslexia!

It seems to me that we still do not really understand how children learn to read. Perhaps, more importantly, whilst the above text can be read and understood, if numbers were mixed up in the same way they would be absolutely impossible to understand

Free Y3 maths worksheet: Make shapes and describe their features

shape imageIn year 3 children will continue to make shapes and patterns; these becoming more complex and more accurate.

Drawing round shapes such as triangles, rectangles and hexagons and then cutting them out to make repeated patterns should be encouraged. When describing the patterns created, children should be encouraged to name the shapes. They should become familiar with the terms hexagon (6 sides) and octagon (8 sides) remembering that these do not need to be regular ie all the sides do not need to be the same length.

Often children will need to copy a pattern before they feel confident enough to create their own. When drawing round shapes the emphasis should be on accuracy and care, both in placing the shape in the right position and drawing round it.

Free Y3 maths worksheet: Using a rectangle to make shapes

Free Y2 maths worksheet: Make shapes and describe their properties

A pinboard is very useful for exploring all the possible four and five sided shapes.

shape imageA pinboard is very useful for exploring all the possible four and five sided shapes. This may be simply made by nailing panel pins or small nails into a piece of plywood approximately 24cm × 24cm.

Cut out the plywood and mark a grid of lines at 2cm intervals in both directions across the plywood. Tap in the pins at the points where the lines of the grid meet. Leave enough of the pins protruding to accommodate elastic bands.

When exploring 2D shapes made up of squares , it is worth discussing what counts as a shape eg does joining two squares at the corner make a shape? What would happen if you cut it out?….. etc


Free Y2 maths worksheet: Making shapes using a pinboard (pg 1)

Free Y1 maths worksheet: Names of 2-D shapes

There are four 2-D shapes which children should become familiar with in Year 1. These are circle, rectangle, square and triangle.

shape imageThere are four 2-D shapes which children should become familiar with in Year 1. These are circle, rectangle, square and triangle. Unfortunately they are not the easiest words to spell! Children should be able to discuss the properties of these shapes, in particular the number of sides and corners they have. Of course the real world is made up of millions of examples of these shapes – look out for them wherever you go.

Some children might spot that a square is a special kind of rectangle- more of this as they get older. 

Free Y1 maths worksheet: Names of 2-D shapes

Free Y6 maths worksheets: Revise understanding subtraction

calculate imagePlenty of opportunity with these two free maths worksheets to consolidate understanding of subtraction and the use of positive and negative numbers. By year 6 children should find these pretty straightforward although some children do struggle with the concept of a negative number and will always take the smaller number from the larger number even when the question asks for the opposite (eg 1234 – 4321).

Free Y6 maths worksheets: Revise understanding subtraction (pg 1)

Free Y6 maths worksheets: Revise understanding subtraction (pg 2)