Maths help for parents of children aged 5 to 11
Still chilly outside so a little ‘snowflake’ number investigation suitable for Year 1 children (5-6 yrs old). Given the numbers 1, 3 5 and 7 what addition sums can be made? Encourage working in a logical way.
The second question asks how many different answers can be made when subtracting. There are less possible different subtraction answers than addition.
This worksheet can be used as a check to see how well your child has learned their subtraction facts. There are several ways that this page could be tackled, depending on the confidence and knowledge of the child. Some children may want to use the number line to count back, others might prefer to use their fingers. What we are really hoping for, however, is that some of these facts have been committed to memory: the calculation does not have to be worked out by counting back, rather the fact is already known. Those children who know their number facts will complete this page much more quickly than those who don’t.
This is very similar to the process of adding 19 to a 2-digit number. The easiest way to do this is usually to take twenty and then add one. This mental arithmetic method is much quicker than carrying out the question using pencil and paper methods.If children can grasp these ideas it gives them a great deal of confidence and they can develop their own mental methods of answering other, similar questions; eg subtract 18 by taking 20 and then adding 2, or subtracting 39 by taking forty and adding one.
Money is a great way to encourage children with their addition and subtraction and of course, it is the spending of it when we most use our mental arithmetic skills!
This worksheet is for Year 1 children who are confident with counting and adding small numbers. It uses three coins, the 1p, 5p and 10p. Encourage trying to add in order of size, starting with the largest coin and, if necessary, counting on from that.
This page adds to our selection of measurement worksheets for year 1. It looks at two terms, longer and shorter, and should be used in conjunction with plenty of discussion in the home. Ask questions such as ‘Which is the taller candle?’ and make requests, eg ‘Pass me the shorter pencil, please’ during the everyday activities you do with your children.
Here we have a very straightforward couple of pages with up to 20 sweets to count. We work hard with children when they first start to count but then tend to neglect this area of counting on past ten. The sweets have been laid out in such a way that there are rows of ten. ‘Bright sparks’ may spot this and start at ten and just count the second row. ‘Burning hot’ sparks might do a quick subtraction with the rows that are nearly ten: it’s always interesting to watch how children set about tasks such as these.
There’s lots more for young children at urbrainy.com, which is rapidly becoming one of the best sites around for early years maths.
Once children have got a firm grasp of working with numbers up to 10 their skills can be developed with addition and subtraction from larger numbers, beginning with teens. This maths worksheet is a first step at counting back 4 from a number, including crossing the ten boundary. The arrows can be used to help count down 4. Continue to encourage counting back ‘out loud’. If children want to use their fingers then the best way is to hold four fingers up and say the number to count down from and then take one finger away each time they count back one until there are no fingers left!
Here is a maths worksheet suitable for year 1 children, taken from the great range of maths at urbrainy.com.
When children first learn to count in tens they usually start with whole tens eg 10, 20, 30, 40 etc.
This page takes the concept one step further in that the starting number is not a multiple of 10.
When counting on from 13 children will quickly realise that the units remain the same and that it is the tens digit which is increasing by one each time.
Year 1 maths worksheet from mathsblog.co.uk
Sometimes children develop the idea that there can only be one answer to a problem, especially if they are brought up on a diet of ‘sums’ which are either right or wrong. In reality, there are often many correct answers to mathematical problems and this is where investigations come into their own.
Here we have a simple problem, which actually has an infinite number of correct answers. When approaching this, even at the age of 5 or 6 we should be looking for some kind of logical thinking and organisation in recording answers.
Maths worksheet on recognising squares from mathsblog.co.uk
Here is a straightforward maths worksheet on recognising squares. Remember that the square is a special sort of quadrilateral, with all four sides the same length and all four angles are right angles. We normally see squares represented with the sides horizontal and vertical, but it is harder to spot a square when it is tilted, giving it more of a diamond appearance – don’t be fooled as it could well be a square slightly rotated. Very young children may see this as a different shape which brings up the notion that the shape stays the same even if it is rotated.
At this stage, work with shape should be mainly practical using real shapes. Schools will normally be stocked with plastic or similar shapes, both 2-D and 3-D, but parents can quickly and easily make a collection of the most common shapes from empty tins and packets (including those boxes from a popular triangular chocolate bar), and cut 2-D shapes from card.
2-D and 3-D shapes are all around us. Use opportunities to discuss shapes as you come across them in everyday life (clocks, bath plugs, holes in the road, fencing posts, CDs etc).