A relatively new site which has come to my attention recently is mangahigh.com. Aimed at High School students, this would only be appropriate to older primary children with a good mathematical knowledge.

A great free game to try out would be Ice Ice Maybe on estimation which is well within the range of older primary children – but watch out, it might prove addictive!

The aim of the site is to intrigue and interest students with high quality games whilst at the same time introducing new maths concepts. The repetition within playing the game leads to knowledge and success in exams.

As they say:
“Mangahigh’s unique game-based learning system brings out the mathematician in ALL students who love games.”

The games are certainly of a high standard, equal to many of the best on-line games and will almost certainly be attractive to High School students.

The games award students for success but more than this, it has a ‘learning engine’ that includes thousands of maths problems with worked answers.

Mangahigh covers all of the lessons required to score highly at Foundation and Higher Maths GCSE exams, and the questions and content are matched to teaching goals for all the major UK exam boards.

The people behind mangahigh certainly give it credibility: Ian Livingstone of Livingstone and Jackson Dungeons and Dragons and White Dwarf magazine as well as Marcus Du Sautoy, Professor of Maths at Oxford and Toby Rowland of King.com.

Starting at £4.85 a month if subscribing for a year there are many worse ways of spending your money on your children.

Originally designed for children in Early Years it is now used extensively by many teachers in Key Stage 2 as it can be used for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as other arithmetic operations.

To get the best use of the resources there are a number of videos available on the site which are well worth looking at, as this approach breaks the restrictive trends of the Numeracy Strategy; always a good thing!

They also have a number of free resources for primary children (aged 5 – 11) to put on the wall at home at:

http://www.numicon.com/display_resources.html

If you are looking for a different approach to maths or have a child who is really struggling with understanding number then I would certainly recommend this site.

Numicon

Handa’s Surprise is a great book for young children – one that they really like to have read to them again and again. As well as being a good story it incorporates some strong maths concepts, including counting, sequencing and subtraction.
Set in Africa there is a warm summery glow to the book with bright illustrations and a range of unusual animals and fruits which children may not have come across before.
Handa puts seven exotic fruits into her basket and sets off to take them to her friend. She carries the basket on her head and as she walks along animals steal the fruits one at a time.

This is available as a ‘Big Book’ and with a DVD.

Handa’s Surprise (Walker paperbacks)

The Shopping Basket by John Burningham is a great little book which will be thoroughly enjoyed by young children whilst at the same time helping them with counting and subtraction. Steven is a little boy who is asked by his mum to go round to the local corner shop, taking the shopping basket with him to bring back 6 eggs, five bananas, four apples….etc. The scenario will be familiar to many children as a trip round to the corner shop is often the first time they are allowed out alone by their parents. However, this is not an ordinary trip to the shops as Steven meets all kinds of dangers on the way. These dangers come in the form of animals such as a bear, a monkey and a kangaroo,  demanding the contents of his shopping basket. Steven deals with the dangers in a variety of ways and arrives home safely – but will his heroic efforts be appreciated? John Burningham is one of the best writers of children’s books and this is one of his best – humourous, well illustrated and not to be missed.

The Enormous Crocodile by R Dahl

If you want to introduce your child to some mathematical words involving shape and have enormous fun whilst doing so, then ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ by Roald Dahl is just the book for you. But you do have to have a delicious liking for cruel humour and not mind rather tasteless endings!
Typical of Dahl’s writing, with name calling, suspense and a horribly vile villain, it is probably best left for the over threes. You might find that your children become horribly addicted to the story and want it read to them time and again!
In short, the crocodile tells the other animals that he has some clever tricks up his sleeve to eat some juicy children. Indeed they are clever tricks, but one by one the hippo, monkey etc ensure that his plans are thwarted and the greedy croc comes to a suitable end!

Mychild is a website for parents. It offers a huge amount of help including parenting advice, worksheets and resources. Some of these are free but they also offer a subscription service. Whilst this isn’t cheap it does come with some excellent resources across the curriculum and includes magazines and CDs. This costs £86 for one year, but you can get an excellent starter pack of books and CDs for £9.00 (currently valued at over £190) to review for 10 days. If you don’t want it, then by returning within 10 days will ensure that your money is returned. You can’t ask for more than that.

Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but many parents do find this a valuable site.

Making lists is an important part of the data handling strand of the Primary Framework for Maths and there is hardly a better example of list making than Teddybears Go Shopping by Susanna Gretz and  Alison Sage.
The shopping list is very much like a song and encourages children to repeat it –great for encouraging the memory! However, all does not go exactly to plan at the supermarket as William and the rest of the bears go shopping!
Children of all ages love this book – well worth reading!