December, 2010 | Maths Blog

Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne

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)

Maths puzzles

With Christmas rapidly approaching and the unit plans finished for the term it is a great time to try out some maths puzzles which lead to a better knowledge of the subject and an improvement in logical thinking.

There are some great games and puzzles on the site for all aged children. The word searches are all on the themes of maths vocabuary and the maths wordsnakes are a challenge even for adults. These are also ideal for wet breaks and lunchtimes, or a dreary wet afternoon at home!

Go to our maths puzzles

Multiply a decimal by a single digit (2)

Here we have two more pages of practice at multiplying a decimal by a single digit. The first six questions on each page are straightforward enough but the later questions may prove to be trickier.

For example: 8 x ? = 3.2 could appear to be quite difficult to work out. Because 3.2 is a smaller than 8 the missing number must be less than 1. if tables are known then 8 x 4 = 32 is known and it should be easy to then work out that 8 x 0. 4 = 3.2.

These two worksheets can be found in our Year 6 Knowing Number facts section, along with more pages on multiplying, doubling and halving.

More_multiplying_decimals (2)

More_multiplying_decimals (3)

Year 3 maths worksheet: train fares

Here we have a worksheet which looks at the cost of going to the seaside by train for the day! There are several concepts involved in this page.

Adults are used to this kind of chart showing prices, but it will probably be unfamiliar to children who will need some explanation on how to read the prices of the tickets.

Once the fares have been understood the questions give good practice at addition, subtraction and multiplication of money. Several of the questions involve two steps, which, as I have said before, makes it much more difficult for children.

When asked how many tickets can be bought for a certain amount children need to understand that half, or ‘part’ of a ticket can not be bought.

Train tickets (1)

Year 4 maths worksheet: relate addition and subtraction

One of the most important concepts for children to understand in the early years is the relationship between addition and subtraction. Given one set of facts they should be able to deduce several other facts.

For example:

If 40 + 30 = 70 then:

30 + 40 = 70

and

70 – 40 = 30

and

70 – 30 = 40.

This free worksheet look at this relationship.

Relate addition and subtraction (2)