February, 2010 | Maths Blog

Coming soon: Multiplication, fractions and a tables game

Next week we have a page on knowing that multiplication can be done in any order. This, of course, is also true of addition, but not subtraction or division and this knowledge comes into play a great deal later on with ‘BODMAS’ etc.

We will also be publishing a tricky year 6 worksheet on fractions. Understanding equivalent fractions is the key to understanding fractions generally and this page will test students understanding.

A good way to reinforce the 2x table is to play our fun game. For two players, why not take on your son/daughter?

Year 2: TV programme Times

This worksheet looks at working out the times of TV programmes and how long they last. Working within units of 5 minutes much of this is straightforward. However working out the start times is a little more tricky and children need to be confident with telling the time to 5 minutes.

Newspapers and TV programme listings are a really good source of material for work on time and can also result in a lot of discussion about favourite programmes etc. They can also be used as a data source for graph work.

TV programmes: telling the time

Subtract a single digit from a multiple of 100

A nice little revision exercise to check that children are confident with counting across the hundreds boundary and also have quick mental arithmetic strategies.

These questions are all subtracting a single digit from a multiple of 100. Some children will do them by counting back, others will employ different strategies such as subtracting 10 and adjusting. Generally, we are looking for quick and accurate methods.

The last three questions ask children to write down the method they usedm, which can reveal a lot.

This page can be found in our Year 4, Calculating section.

Subtract single digit (2)

Review: Number Partners

I came across a really interesting project the other day for anyone in business who would like to share their love of maths with children in school for just a few hours a month.

Number Partners is a volunteering programme designed to support young people in schools across the country with their number and financial literacy skills. Volunteers visit primary or secondary schools to play number games with students, making maths and financial literacy fun, improving their skill with numbers and boosting their confidence.

Evidence indicates that not only do volunteers help in supporting young people’s maths, but are also vitally important in the development of their personal and social skills.

“It’s rewarding to see how giving up a small amount of your time can make a big difference. I was amazed by how excited the children were!”

Volunteer Number Partner

Number Partners volunteers are highly valued in schools and they are in great demand. To read case studies of Number Partners in action and how it can make a real difference to children in schools across the country, please visit the Number Partners website at www.numberpartners.org

Telling the time: Days of the Week

Here we have two pages on days of the week. The best way to use the first page is to cut the days of the week out and shuffle them. Lay them out in a random order and use them to carry out simple activities or to ask questions, such as:

Pick up the day that says Thursday.

Pick up the day that was yesterday.

What do you do on Saturdays? etc

The second page is a set of anagrams of the days of the week, courtesy of urbrainy.com which has a really good selection of worksheets on telling the time.

Days of the week

Year 2 Calculations: Multiplication and money

A great way to practice the 2x, 5x and 10x tables is with 2p, 5p and 10p coins. If you can gather together a set of ten of each this makes for a really good practical resource with endless questions: e.g. I have six 5p coins, how much do I have? Give me 20p all in 5p coins etc.
As a backup to this kind of work we have a worksheet from urbrainy.com which use coins as a basis for practising tables. At first children may count up in twos, fives or tens, but encourage them to just count the number of coins and multiply. (Although I admit that when I am in a shop with a pocket full of change I tend to count up!) This is just one of a great set of worksheets you can find at urbrainy.com.

More worksheets on multiplication can be found in our Four Rules, Multiplication section.

Multiplication and money (pg 1)

News: Are children getting enough sleep?

Newsround has come up with some interesting data about children’s sleep habits. It found that more than half of the 9 to 11 year old children interviewed admitted that they thought they needed more sleep.

Most children of this age went to bed by 21.30 but then many stayed up watching TV, playing video games or games on their mobile phones.

Over half the children interviewed said they had a TV in their bedrooms.

Experts recommend at least 10 hours sleep a night and a lack of sleep has been linked to a wide range of behavioural problems such as ADHD.

How important is it that parents know what their children are doing, what TV programmes they are watching, what computer games they are playing and what they are accessing on their phones? This is impossible to monitor if they are sent up to their rooms to ‘play’ for hours.

Coming soon: Multiplication, money and time

Also coming soon will be pages on time, including days of the week for young children and problems using television programme times.

Multiplication worksheet: Multiply by whole tens (2)

This is another multiplication worksheet which helps with the early stages of written multiplication.

Multiplying by 40 is the same as multiplying by 10 and multiplying by 4. To multiply by 10 just move each digit one place to the left and place a zero in the units column.

This method reduces this process by placing the zero in the units and then multiplying by 4, ensuring each digit of the answer is placed one space further to the left. There we go!

Multiply by whole tens (2)

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:

Count up crossing thousands