Maths help for parents of children aged 5 to 11
Can you help him count the number of footballs?
Ted just loves to watch football on the TV and when he is older he will be allowed to go and see his favourite team live. I wonder who his favourite team is? I bet it is the same as yours!
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Free Y3 maths worksheets: Sorting data and tally
The first of these two worksheets gives an opportunity to sort items into two categories: food and not food. Apologies for the drawings on these – it might be a good idea to discuss what the drawings represent before classifying them as food, or not food!
This is a very powerful concept and when looking at this page I keep thinking of classification in science – a concept which comes up very often in the year 6 SAT papers in the form of tree diagrams. It also features very highly in the more abstract world of computer programming.
The second worksheet introduces the idea of collecting data by making a chart and recording results in the form of a tally. Once the tally chart has been completed it should be used to fill in the frequency table below. Then discuss the results.
Free maths worksheet: making lists (pg 3)
Some more lists to make with these two maths worksheets, this time for year 2 children. By this age there are a large number of opportunities in the home for making and organising lists. Apart from the obvious shopping, going on holiday is a great source for list making – what clothes do we take, what food in the car etc etc. Jobs to do in the garden, flowers we have, TV programmes etc etc. You can also begin to categorise the lists into two sections: likes and dislikes, hot meals, cold meals, take aways, home cooking and so on.
Why do this? Because it helps with organising and classifying information which is very important later when creating graphs, using venn diagrams etc.
Making lists is a very good way to develop good organisation and clear thinking.
Making lists is a very good way to develop good organisation and clear thinking. The first of these lists (days of the week) is a ‘closed’ list ie only a small number of possible items. If they don’t yet know all the days of the week use this as good practice at remembering them.
The second is more open in that it is unlikely that a child would know of all possible fruits. However, this could lead to a good discussion as to what counts as a fruit; an early stage in classifying which is also important in science.
Maths puzzles: Wordsnake more data
Not only is this a hard type of maths puzzle to complete, the words themselves are quite tricky.
Remember in a word snake start at the arrow and track letters which are next to the previous letter (not diagonally).This means that you can follow quite a tricky path through the grid. Each letter of the grid is only used once.
The first mathematical word is given to you and it starts at the bottom left and snakes its way up the grid.
The second word begins with m and is next to the e of average. You are not given any clues for the last four words which makes it very difficult – you may need to peep at the answer to see what the words are and then track them.
Maths puzzles: Word search fractions
Back to a straightforward word search today, suitable for year 5 children as there is some quite tricky vocabulary in this.
The format of this is more in line with traditional word searches. You are given all the words and they can be found in the grid, either across, down or diagonally.
Whilst doing this discuss the meanings of the words, especially numerator, denominator and equivalent.
Maths puzzles: Wordsnake data handling words
The Primary Framework for Mathematics has given each year group a set of mathematical words that they should know. This word snake contains words from the data handling section of year 4. There are only 8 of them but every latter in the grid is used once.
The words can be found by moving across or up and down (but not diagonally). The next word follows on directly from the first.
The first word (survey) is given to you so that you can get the idea. The first letter of next two words is also given, then you are left to find them with no help.
This is not easy: try it yourself.
Maths puzzles: Word search 4x table
Maths puzzles do not have to be about numbers. This is a word search to encourage the learning of the 4x table. Some interesting spellings also within this search.
The four times table can be quickly derived by doubling the 2x table, but it is expected that children will learn the 4x table so that they can give an answer as quickly as if asked what their names are.
Watch out for the word forty, as the u from four seems to mysteriously disappear when adding the y. Just one of the little things which make spelling difficult for our children.
Maths game: Counting planes (counting up to 10)
I lover seeing the vapour trails of aeroplanes as they fly across the blue sky. Can you help Ted count the number of planes he can see?
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Maths puzzles: Word search months of the year
Here we have another simple maths puzzle, a word search suitable for young children. To keep it as easy as possible the words to be found go either across the page or down. There are no words going backwards or diagonally.
It can take children a long time before they are confident with the spellings of all the months of the year. probably the hardest is February as it is often pronounced without the first r being sounded.