Maths help for parents of children aged 5 to 11

In order for children to be really confident with handling numbers it is very important that they have a great deal of practice in counting forwards and backwards.

To re-inforce place value counting on and back in ones, tens, hundreds and thousands is especially worthwhile.

This might appear to be easay, but problems do arrive when crossing the next hundred or thousand. A number line or grid is very useful in helping with this.

Number grid in tens

Free maths worksheets from mathsblog.co.uk

Counting in tens might seem easy, especially by year 4.

However, there are many children who do find difficulties, especially when crossing the hundreds and thousands boundaries. One such difficulty might show itself if asked to write down ten more than 1097, which is 1107 or ten more than 2896 which is 2906.
Even harder might be ten less than 4006, which is 3996.

Don’t take it for granted that your children can do this as a really good understanding of place value is needed.

Ten more than/less than (pg 2)

Free maths worksheet from mathsblog.co.uk

Y4 addition

It has been a while since I posted anything for year 4 so here is a maths worksheet on addition. It is good revision of the terms: ‘What is the sum of…’, ‘What is the total of…’, ‘How many altogether?’ and ‘increase….by…’.
These terms should all be familiar to children in year 4 and they should be able to carry them out in their heads.
When adding three numbers in your head it is a good idea to start by adding all three tens and then adding on the units eg
25 + 36+ 51.

Add the 20, 30 and 50 to make 100.
Then add 5 to make 105, then 6 to make 111 and finally 1 to make 102.
Note this is by all means not the only way to do it!

More addition in your head (pg 3)

Well, the metric system has been with us for a long time but there are still many children who use Imperial units when talking, often not knowing very much about them. Schools teach the metric system: society seems to want to keep the old fashioned system and it is our children who suffer.

Metric is far easier and this worksheet reminds children of the main units:

1 km = 1000 m

1 m = 100 cm

1 cm = 10 mm

1 kg = 1000 g

1 litre = 1000 ml

It is also worth reminding ourselves that a litre of water has a mass (weighs) one kilo and fits exactly into a 10 cm cube!

Rant over - try the worksheet.

Free Y4 maths worksheet: using standard metric units

Children always seem very reluctant to check the answers to calculations that they have made. This sometimes results in bizarre answers, often when using a calculator.

Here is a simple subtraction worksheet but it also asks for each subtraction to be checked by carrying an addition.

For example: 40 - 17 = 23 can be checked by adding 17 and 23 which equals 40.

The most comon error that children make with this is to say that 40 -17 = 33.

Free Y4 maths worksheet: checking answers to subtraction

It’s been a while since I posted anything for year 4 so here is another addition worksheet. Not easy, and a number of skills need to have been learned to do these in an efficient manner.

For example: looking at ‘add 46 to 67′.

There a a number of ways to do this. Perhaps the most efficient is to add 40 to 67 to make 107 and then add on the extra 6 to make 113.
The second part of the sheet is a reminder of some of the ways that addition questions can be phrased.

Free Y4 maths worksheet: More addition in your head (pg 2)

We usually think of the terms convex and concave in relation to mirrors and lens. The word convex means curving out or bulging out but it can also be applied to polygons. A convex polygon is one where all the internal angles are less than 180 degrees - the type that we are most familiar with. A concave polygon will have an interior angle greater than 180 degrees - it looks as if it has been pushed in on one side.

Free Y4 maths worksheet: Concave and convex shapes

Some quick revision of addition, working all answers out ‘in your head’.

By now children should have a wide range of techniques for adding mentally. One example on this maths worksheet is to add 29 by adding 30 and subtracting one. Also here is some revision of the language of addition: increase, total, how many altogether.

Free Y4 maths worksheet: More addition in your head (pg 1)

On this free maths worksheet is some pretty hard work concerned with prisms.

(A prism is a solid figure whose bases or ends have the same size and shape and are parallel to one another, and each of whose sides is a parallelogram.)

It is a good idea to try and collect a variety of prisms so that there properties can be explored in detail.

Look out for interesting shaped boxes eg toblerone packet is a triangular prism.

There are some interesting facts about prisms such as the number of faces is always two more than the number of edges on the end. Other facts are included on the answer page.

Free Y4 maths worksheet: More about prisms

This maths worksheet gives some practice at adding on to make the next whole thousand. The questions are in the form of:

“What must be added to 3400 to make 4000?”

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