Resource of the Week
Resource of the Week: Year 4 data handling
Most of the worksheets that you see free online are for numbers and calculating, as these are the easiest to produce. However, mathsblog has an excellent range of worksheets across all areas of maths, including data handling. Here is a page on interpreting bar charts, which also uses the 24 hour clock. it is important to point out that charts such as these must have a proper title and that the axes must be labelled. When children produce their own bar charts they often forget to do this labelling.
When looking at a bar chart one of the first things to do is work out how the numbers are being represented. In this case the number of people on the bus is shown in blocks of 10 and half way between would be a block of 5.
Resource of the Week: Year 4 Find a difference
Sometimes a simple question can reveal a great deal about how children deal with numbers. This maths worksheet on finding differences is full of such questions.
Let’s look at 3005 – 8 which is easier to do mentally than on paper.
There are several ways that this can be done.
1. Count down, one at a time, 8 from 3005, saying each number as you go. Fingers may be held up on each count down until 8 is reached.
3004, (1), 3003 (2), 3002 (3), 3001 (4), 3000 (5), 2999 (6), 2998 (7), 2997 (8)
2. A different way is to take the 8 from 3000, then add 5.
3000 – 8 = 2992
2992 + 5 = 2997
3. A third way is to take 5 off the 8 leaving 3.
Then take 3 off 3000 = 2997
It is well worth talking to children about how they do this kind of question and what strategies they employ. Much will depend on their knowledge of number.
Resource of the Week: subtraction
There are many occasions when a 4-digit subtraction can be done ‘in your head’. These questions, suitable for Year 5, are examples of this. They all involve numbers which are just over and just under a whole thousand.
For example: 3003 – 2994
Probably the easiest way to do this mentally is to count on 7 from 2993 to make 3000 and then count on, or add, the extra 4, making 11.
This is much easier than doing the question on paper, with lots of ‘borrowing’ and carrying, crossing out etc!
We have a growing number of pages on mental subtraction including this:
Resource of the Week: Reading the time
This maths worksheet on reading time to the nearest quarter of an hour highlights several issues which create problems for children.
Firstly, on the clock face the hours are clearly numbered but the minutes are not and children need to be able to count on in fives before they can read minutes successfully.
Secondly, when telling someone the time we often approximate, either to the nearest quarter of an hour or the nearest five minutes, even when we can see clearly what the time is to the nearest minute.
Thirdly, when saying the time out or writing it we use several different conventions, as shown on the answer sheet.
Lastly, many children seldom come across this type of clock face, especially if they use digital watches, mobile phones etc., therefore take much longer to work it out – don’t be surprised to find ten year olds unable to read an analogue clock correctly.
Resource of the Week: Moving towards standard written methods of addition
Just one page is not enough for children to become confident with a method, so as often as possible I include at least a second maths worksheet in this case, on ‘moving towards standard written methods’ of 2-digit addition’.
With this method the units are added and placed below the sum, making sure the units are in line and the ten is placed in the tens column. The tens are then added and placed below. The crucial concept here is to remember that it is tens which are being added, so there will be a zero in the units column to ensure that the tens numbers are kept in line. Finally the two answers are added.
This method shows clearly what is happening and should clarify the troublesome ‘carrying’ of the tens when using the standard written method.
Moving towards standard written methods of addition (2)
Resource of the Week: Year 6 fractions vocabulary
Don’t forget that we have a great range of pages which provide information and printable resources on what is expected in each year group by the primary Framework for Maths. This list contains the key vocabulary for Fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio in year 6.
Children will have come across all these words in earlier years, but by the end of year 6 (10/11 yr old) they should have a good understanding of all of them
Fraction proper fraction improper fraction
Numerator denominator
Equivalent reduced to cancel
Half quarter eighth
Third sixth ninth twelfth
Fifth tenth twentieth
Hundredth thousandth
Proportion decimal fraction
Decimal point decimal place
percentage per cent %
When spelling, the word twelfth often causes problems. They are all shown in a larger font below if you want to cut them out and print them.
If you are unsure of any of the meanings try one of the free online maths dictionaries such as at
www.mathsphere.co.uk or www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/
(Taken from Mathematical Vocabulary Book DfEE)
Resource of the Week: Booster page for Year 6 SATs.
Don’t forget that we have some excellent ‘booster’ pages for children who will be doing their SATs this summer. Here we have some examples of the type of arithmetic questions that come up. An interesting example is the question which asks to put the digits 7, 3 and 4 into the boxes to make the total of 41.
Sometimes there is more than one way to do this type of question and it is a matter of using ‘trial and improvement’ to solve it.
One good way to tackle it is to look at the units (in this case 1) and see which two digits added together will put a 1 in the units. The only option here is is to add the digits 7 and 4 (which make 11), put these in the units boxes and it is easy from there on.
Thanks to MathSphere for letting us use this worksheet.
Resource of the Week: Measuring using the metric system
Thanks to MathSphere and Mathsgogo for these two worksheets which show how much easier the metric system is than the old Imperial system. Take length for example: no 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard or 1760 yards in a mile. It’s all tens, hundreds and thousands! By Year 4 (8/9 yrs old) children should know the standard units of measurement for length, including the abbreviations.
mm (millimetres) cm (centimetres) m (metres) and km (kilometres) .
They should also know that:
1 kilometre = 1 000 metres
1 metre = 100 centimetres or 1 000 millimetres
1 centimetre = 10 millimetres
These facts really do have to be learned, but it is not too difficult as they are all multiples of 10, unlike the old Imperial system!
They should also be developing their understanding of what is the best unit to use: eg what is the most suitable unit to measure the length of the garden?
It is not so easy to find real life situations where kilometres are used – certainly in athletics, cycling races etc, but unfortunately our roads are still signposted in miles – but that issue is for another whole series of blogs!
Resource of the Week: Year 4 bar charts
Don’t forget that we have a growing number of resources on data handling, including the bar chart or bar graph. These pages are aimed at Year 4 children. The vertical bars represent the number of people going out on a boat. Each bar is completely separate from the others.
It is important that children get used to naming the horizontal and vertical axes and that these axes should always be named.
The hardest part of interpreting this bar chart involves the number of people shown on the vertical axis. The numbers go up in twenties, but of course there are intermediate values. The number of people on the 11.00 boat is more difficult to read and only a close approximation between 120 and 140 can be made. As it looks just less than half way to the next interval an estimate of just below 130 would be very accurate.
It is important not to just look at the graph but to also make some suggestions as to why the results are as they are. Why did the 12.00 boat have the least number of people on it, but the 1.00 boat have the most?
The second worksheet has similar problems, but the numbers on the vertical axis go up in tens rather than twenties.
Resource of the Week: Adding puzzle for Christmas
Once again from the stats I can see that everyone is very busy with shopping, eating, drinking etc so will join you all and have a week off. I will leave you with a little puzzle given to us by Mathsphere which we sent up a year ago in case you have nothing better to do!
Put the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the bottom layer of baubles on the Christmas tree. The next layer is made by adding the pairs of numbers below and so on up to the top.
The numbers on the bottom row can be put in any order – what order will give the highest possible total at the top?
Answer is given for those who have eaten too many mince pies.
Happy Christmas
Resource of the Week: Christmas tree puzzle
It doesn’t seem like a year ago that this little Christmas maths puzzle was posted, but Christmas is now just around the corner (although our local garden centre would have me believe that it started in early October!).
This puzzle looks quite easy but can cause a lot of problems. Probably suitable for older children, or even mums and dads! It asks to put the digits 1 to 9 in stars around a Christmas tree so that each side of four stars adds up to the same total.
There are a number of solutions, the one shown just an example.
Resource of the Week: game: cross numbers
Maths games can be great for improving knowledge and this one we borrowed from the mathsphere.co.uk site, which is part of their extensive free resources.
Feeling confident about 2x, 5x and 10x tables? Why not have a go at this cross number? Just drag the numbers across to the correct squares. Easy peasy if you know your tables! If you get stuck the answers appear in red, but only for a short time.
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