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Year 1 maths worksheet: Christmas halving

From time to time it’s nice to have a topical maths worksheet and here is one for year 1 at Christmas time.

The ability to double and halve numbers quickly is a great strategy to have at your fingertips as it can help later with all sorts of calculations. Here we have a year 1 page which looks at halving small even numbers. The theme is Christmas and there is lot’s of drawing! You might like to give a separate piece of paper so that the drawings can be done larger than on the sheet; or it could be very useful as a whiteboard activity.

Whilst I do not have a great many Christmas pages or a separate category for this I do know that urbrainy have an increasing number of them for the whole primary age range. A small selection are available absolutely free at:

http://pages.urbrainy.com/happy-christmas-2011

Halving small numbers (Christmas)

Top children’s reading books to help with maths

Over a period of time I have collected together a great selection of books suitable for young children to help them with counting and number skills. All these books are a great read in themselves, but they also all have a mathematical slant. They are rather hidden away within the Top Maths Books section and you will need to scroll down past the other maths books to find them, but if you have young children I thoroughly recommend having a look.

Books such as

The Boy who was Followed Home by Margaret Mahy all about a young boy being followed by a hippopotamus.

Handa’s Surprise set in Africa and full of exotic fruits and animals.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, an absolute must for all young children.

Mr Wolf’s Week by Colin Hawkins is an old favourite, with an almost friendly wolf.

Not forgetting one of all time favourites, Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang, each page has a warm comforting glow, perfect for a bedtime story.

These are just a few of the great reading books suggested and they can all be found at;

Top Maths Books

11.11.11.11.11 The eleventh of the eleventh..

There are times and dates, interesting times and dates and really incredibly fantastic times and dates and the good news is that we are rapidly approaching one of the all time best. You will probably not live long enough to beat this!

On the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh month 2011 the date will be 11.11.11.11.11.

Wow!

There are plenty of myths flying around that something incredibly good, or something incredibly bad is going to happen, with cosmic shifts and all sorts, but I believe that there is no scientific evidence for any such thing and that nothing out of the usual will happen. Or I could be wrong! Nevertheless, it is a great date to remember and those of you who have followed this blog over the years will know that I really like the patterns these dates make.

Of course the eleventh of the eleventh is well known as the anniversary of the end of the first world war, with two minute silences held at 11 am on Remembrance Sunday.

A new movie, called, you guessed it, 11.11.11 should be released on this day.

Also quite peculiar is this little fact;
Take the last two digits of your year of birth, plus the age you will be this year. Add them together and it will be…….111!

In the binary system the number 1111111111 has a value of 1023 in the decimal system (512 + 256 +128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1)
Plenty of interesting patterns to explore there!

Whilst we are looking at 111…. why not have a look at this fantastic prime number:

1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111
1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111
1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111
1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111
1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111
1111111111
1111111 (317 digits)

Resource of the week: Year 4 pictogram-cars

This worksheet is suitable for Year 4 children. Graphs and pictograms are often seen as a quite easy part of maths, but many children find interpreting them correctly tricky. The pictogram displays information about the most popular cars seen in a village. All pictograms need a key so that it is clear how many each picture represents. In this case each picture of a car represents 5 cars.

Handling data should be seen as a practical activity, with deciding on what data to collect, making suitable collection sheets and recording information all key parts. This page should be seen more as a starter to go and collect data themselves and make their own pictograms. Problems might arise when the data is not in whole fives or tens. This can be solved by showing part of a car eg a wheel could represent one car. This would need to be shown clearly on the pictogram.

The worksheet can be found in our Year 4 Handling Data category, together with some other fun pictograms and graphs.

Pictogram: most popular cars

Four Nations Maths Challenge

For those of you who love the Mathletics, ‘World Maths Day’, then you will no doubt be interested in the Four Nations Maths Challenge.

Schools and parents can register now for the event which will take place on 17-18 November but if they are already registered for Mathletics then they can use their existing sign in details.

Competition can be a great way to encourage mathematics and many schools have found that entering maths events can improve children’s motivation and attainment.

Just visit the Four Nations Maths Challenge website at: www.fournationsmathschallenge.co.uk

Inspired by the Six nations Rugby tournament, competition will be fierce as children take part in maths challenges. The first day they complete a number of challenges and on the second day they compete against other students. it is open to children of all ages across the primary and secondary age ranges.

Maths for Halloween

More Halloween worksheets can be found on the urbrainy.com site – well worth a visit.

Nobody seems to be sure about the origins of Halloween but celebrations in the UK seem to be on the increase, perhaps following its popularity in the USA. We do know that it is always on the eve of All Saints Day and that pumpkins, apple bobbing, dressing up and demanding sweets seem to be important modern features.

So why not try a maths worksheet on Halloween? With less emphasis on the government’s planning more schools are developing themes for their maths. This page is suitable for older children who have a grasp of multiplication. A number is put through the two pots, firstly multiplying by 3 and then adding 9. The second set of questions show the resulting number and have to be worked backwards to find the number that is inputted.

Finally there are some missing digit questions. All very spooky!

This page can be found in my Year 5 calculating category.

Halloween

More Halloween worksheets can be found on the urbrainy.com site – well worth a visit.

Resource of the Week: Rounding to the nearest million

One of the earliest posts that I made, back in 2007 was about rounding large numbers, up to millions. Many children are fascinated by large numbers and these two pages can help them both with reading and writing large numbers and rounding.

Thanks to mathsphere.co.uk for letting me use these resources, as they are taken from the ‘it’s All Figured Out’ CD.

Larger numbers can be rounded in just the same way as rounding hundreds or thousands; the key is to refer to the digit below the one you want to round.

Eg rounding to a million, look at the hundred thousand digit:

2 345 456 is rounded down to 2 000 000 (two million) to the nearest million because the hundred thousand digit is only 3.

2 987 654 is rounded up to 3 000 000 (three million) to the nearest million because the hundred thousand digit is 9.

There are plenty of good sources in geography, such as population figures, areas of countries etc

Rounding to the nearest million (pg 1)

Rounding to the nearest million (pg 2)

Year 1 addition game

Early years teachers are great at coming up with resources to help with addition, without them just being rows of sums. The teacher writers at urbrainy.com have come up with some excellent resources for year 1, including this great little board game for two people which involves both using a strategy and knowing addition facts. It is best played with one adult and one child, but beware you may lose! You will need 2 dice, 2 sets of 5 different coloured counters or cubes plus a calculator and the games sheet.

Decide who is to go first.Player one goes first and rolls the two dice. Add up the total and place a counter on a square showing that number. If the number has already been covered it becomes the next players go. Then player 2 has their turn. Some numbers, such as 7, come up on the grid several times (as there is a greater chance of throwing a 7 than any other total) so it is important to think about which 7 the counter is placed on.

The winner is the first person to put three counters in a row, across, down or diagonally. Sometimes it is more important to block the opponent than to try to create your own 3 in a row.

This game can be found in our Year 1 Calculating category

Dice: 3 in a row addition game

Resource of the Week: Congruent shapes and scalene triangles

Today we look at two mathematical terms which are less commonly known. Firstly, congruent is a word to conjure with! In fact it has a very simple meaning. If two shapes are congruent then they are identical in every way, including size.

Whilst this is very straightforward, unfortunately people who design maths tests papers make this as difficult as possible, as children are expected to be able to spot congruent shapes even when one of a pair has been turned. By far the easiest way to spot two congruent shapes is to cut one out, or trace it and see if it fits exactly over the other – if it does it is congruent. On this worksheet the aim is to find pairs of shapes which are congruent, and as always, the answers are provided! I do recommend the tracing option!

The second term is scalene. Most people are familiar with equilateral triangles and isosceles triangles but the term scalene triangle is the one that is most frequently forgotten. Quite simply, a scalene triangle is one which has no sides the same length and no equal angles.

These two worksheets can be found in the Year 5, Shape and Measures category.

Congruent shapes

Scalene triangles

Year 2 Measurement

Great progress is made in year 2 with measuring. Much of the work still concentrates on comparisons between different lengths, heights, weights and capacity but standard units of measurement (such as centimetres and metres) are also introduced.
Units of time are also introduced, including seconds, minutes, hours and days and the relationship between them. Reading clock faces to the quarter hour is another step forward.
I have a selection of resources on these topics, found in the Year 2 maths Worksheet category, under Measuring.
I would also especially recommend the material at urbrainy.com for these topics, as they have a great range of resources which can be viewed free of charge and up to ten sets of worksheets printed free.

Go to Year 2 measuring resources