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Resource of the Week: Simple Maths Games

Whilst most of the mathsblog site is about maths worksheets we do have a small selection of fun maths games for young children.

Listen under the Reception/Year 1 Maths Games there are over 20 simple maths games which younger children children may like to play and which will certanly help with counting, ordering and addition .

Here is one example to help with counting.

Help Ted colour his white balloons. Just by clicking in the balloons the colour will change.

One click will make a balloon go Red.

Two clicks will turn the balloon Blue.

Three clicks will change the colour to Gold.

Don’t forget to press Go when you think the colours are correct!

This is great practice at counting, why not have a go?

More games can be found in our Maths Games section.

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Maths Games: Adding game for Year 3 onwards

This Maths game is a great way to practise addition of small numbers. It is a game for two players and can be a good challenge for adults as well as children. Each player takes it in turn to place a counter over one of the numbers. When a counter is paced on the board the number is added to a joint total. It is a good idea to write the totals down as you go along, so that totals can be checked, or there might be a dispute! Once a counter has been placed it cannot be picked up.

The aim of the game is to make the total come to exactly 31. The player who does so is the winner.

If a player places a counter to make the total over 31 he/she loses.

This is a game of strategy and and there are times when the total can not be reached (perhaps if all the ones have been covered).

Make 31

National Numeracy

Once again the poor performance in maths of many adults rears its head as the charity ‘National Numeracy’ states that almost half of British adults have the maths skills of an 11 year old, or worse. This is a new charity launched today as an organisation to champion the importance of number skills for people of all ages.

Over the last eight years the number of people with the numeracy skills of an eleven year old or worse has increased from 15 million to 17 million (49% of all 16 to 59 year olds.)

The charity also highlights the ‘badge of honour’ that people wear, proudly proclaiming that they are no good at maths, something I have talked about before on several occasions.

Chris Humphries, chairman of National Numeracy and former chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, said: “It is simply not acceptable for anyone to say ‘I can’t do maths’.

Lacking maths skills has serious outcomes for people as people with low numeracy skills are twice as likely to be unemployed.

Interestingly, calculators are not blamed,
“Even with calculators they can’t do these problems because they don’t have enough understanding to interpret problems or analyse them,” he said.

Here are questions from the test
1. Screws come in packets of 30. Each bracket needs four screws. What will one packet of screws be enough for?
A: 6 brackets with 3 screws left over;
B: 7 brackets with 2 screws left over;
C: 7 brackets with 3 screws left over;
D: 8 brackets exactly

2. Hasran has planned a new TV cupboard. A TV is 40cm wide and will sit in the middle of a shelf that is 900mm wide. How wide is the gap on each side of the TV?
A: 10cm; B. 25cm; C. 43cm; D. 50cm

3. Match these discounts with the following labels:
1. £300 reduced to £180
2. £240 reduced to 160
3. £350 reduced to £280
Labels:
A. Amazing 1/3 off!
B. Massive 20% off!
C. Slashed by 30%!
D. Reduced by 40p in the £

Go to National Numeracy Charity

Resource of the Week: How to do written multiplication

Some of our most popular resouces are to do with written methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This is just one of our worksheets that show how to use the standard or efficient method to multiply a 3-digit number by a single digit. There are other methods equally good, but it is important that children keep to one method that they become confident with. It presumes a good knowledge of tables before starting.

For example: 436 x 7.

First, do an estimate of the answer.
436 x 7 is approximately 400 x 7 which is 2800. The answer will be over 2800.
Then set the sum out in a vertical layout:
436
x 7

Start with the units.
6 x 7 is 42. Put the 2 in the units and carry the 4 tens into the tens column, under the answer line.
Then multiply the tens.
3 (tens) x 7 is 21(tens). Add the 4 (tens). to make 25(tens).
Place the 5 in the tens column and carry the 2 (hundreds) into the hundreds column.

Finally the hundreds.
4 (hundreds) x 7 is 28 (hundreds). Add the 2 (hundreds) to make 30 (hundreds).
Place the zero in the hundreds column and the 3 in the thousands column.
The answer is 3052.
A clearer layout of this is available on the worksheet explanation.

Further written multiplication worksheets can be found in the Year 5 and Year 6 Calculations sections.

Standard written multiplication: 3-digits by 1-digit

Resource of the week: reflective symetry

Reflective symmetry seems to be a very popular topic for the Key Stage 2 Maths SAT Papers and it is not easy to find examples of the kind of question which is often asked. There are several mathematical terms to do with symmetry that children need to be familiar with. These include:

Mirror line, line of symmetry, line symmetry, symmetrical, reflect, reflection, translation, axis of symmetry, reflective symmetry.

Also they should be able to test for symmetry using a mirror and by folding.

Children should be able to sketch the reflection of a simple shape in a mirror line where none or only some of the edges of the shape are parallel or perpendicular to the mirror line.

This might seem easy, but actuallyoften proves to be problematic to many children. A small mirror is a great help with this and children are supplied with one in their SAT tests if such a question comes up.

Here we have the second of a pair of worksheets which looks at sketching the reflection of shapes in the mirror lines.

Year 6 maths worksheet: Reflective symmetry

Valentine’s Day maths worksheet: Subtraction

Sometimes it’s nice to have a change and special occasions such as Valentine’s Day allows us to do this. Here we have a maths worksheet suitable for Year 3 children with a Valentine Day’s theme. It is a subtraction page but all the missing numbers have to be put into the special Valentine hearts. There are also a couple of Valentine word problems.

The easiest way to do most of these subtractions is by adding on from the smaller number, once again showing the special relationship between addition and subtraction.

Thanks to urbrainy.com for letting me use this page from their vast supply of worksheets, including more on Valentine’s Day.

Valentine subtraction

Telling the time in Year 2

Time is one of the most searched for subject areas on the site. By the end of year 3 children are expected to read the time on a 12 hour digital clock, and to the nearest 5 minutes on an analogue clock. They are also expected to be able to calculate time intervals and find start and finishing times for a given time interval.

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.

This page and others can be found in the Year 2 Measuring category.

TV programmes: telling the time

Resource of the week: Maths Vocabulary for Year 1

I am often asked about the words and ideas that children should be familiar with by the end of Year 1 and there is an excellent set of pages which help with this, found in the Year 1 Maths Worksheets/Vocabulary section.

If a child does not respond to a mathematical question it may be because they do not understand the words or instructions used. Another difficulty can arise when a mathematical term has a different meaning in everyday English eg ‘table’.

The following list has the new words that they should come across in school during year 1 to do with calculating and solving problems.
Words to do with calculating and solving problems:
plus                                       near double
how much more is…?     how much less is…?
subtract                             minus
half                                     halve
equals                               sign
number sentence
operation

Further lists on Number, Measures and Positioncan be found in the

Year 1 Vocabulary category.

Christmas Offer From URBrainy

Here at the MathsBlog we think URBrainy.com is a great site for some really impressive resources.

This Christmas they are running a very special offer. If you subscribe during December for a yearly package you will get 18 months access instead of 12! That’s a whole 6 months extra free on their already discounted yearly rate.

Subscribe to URBrainy

Resource of the week: Christmas adding puzzle

Looking at my stats I can see that everyone is very busy with Christmas assemblies, shows, shopping, eating, drinking etc so I will shortly be joining you all and have a few days off. I will leave you with a little puzzle in case you have nothing better to do!

Put the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the bottom layer of baubles on the Christmas tree. The next layer is made by adding the pairs of numbers below and so on up to the top.

The numbers on the bottom row can be put in any order – what order will give the highest possible total at the top?

Answer is given for those who have eaten too many mince pies.

Happy Christmas

Christmas adding puzzle