Maths Blog

“High-quality direct teaching is oral, interactive and lively. It is not achieved by adopting a simplistic formula of ‘drill and practice’, or by expecting pupils to teach themselves from books. It is a two-way process in which pupils are expected to play an active part by answering questions, contributing points to discussions, and explaining and demonstrating their methods to the class.”

(From the Primary Framework for Mathematics.)

The importance of this kind of work is clearly stated above. Don’t just give this maths worksheet to your child, go through it with them, help them use the language of maths to secure their recall, thinking and reasoning skills.

Free Y6 maths worksheet: Revise understanding subtraction (pg 3)

Very similar to the Year 4 worksheet sent up yesterday. By now children should be checking answers by using the reverse operation as a matter of course. Unfortunately, like most of us they probably don’t!

Encourage them to do this as it is far less likely to lead to errors if there is not a calculator handy to check the answer.

Free Y5 maths worksheet: Understand subtraction and its relationship to addition (pg 3)

This free maths worksheet looks at the relationship between addition and subtraction, in particular, that subtraction is the inverse or opposite of addition. This gives us an excellent way to check answers.

Look at 450 – 51.

We can do the subtraction sum and then check by doing the same subtraction sum again. But there is a danger with this that we might make the same mistake twice.

A better way is to do the subtraction and get the answer (399) and then check by adding the answer 399 to 51 which gives 450. Yes that is the same as the question.

Free Y 4 maths worksheet: Understand subtraction and its relationship to addition (pg 3)

The second of our free maths worksheets using a 1-100 number square to help with subtraction. A number square can be used in much the same way as a number line but it makes it easier to subtract whole tens when subtracting a 2-digit number.
For example, when taking 52 from 70 the square can be used to take 50 and then count back another 2.

The language of subtraction is important on this page. Children can get into the habit of automatically subtracting the second number from the fist, hence they get into difficulties when faced with a question such as:

subtract 18 from 80.

(Make sure they don’t try to take 80 from 18!).

Free Y3 maths worksheet: Subtraction with a number square (pg 2)

This maths worksheet gives a little bit of practice with subtracting a single digit from a 2-digit number, keeping below 30. There is a number line to help.

There are a range of mental arithmetic strategies that can be used for these, depending on the numbers. For example 25 – 5 is straightforward, however 23 -6 could prove much trickier and the number line could be used in several ways.

Some children will just count back 6 to reach 17. Others might recognise that 6 is 3 + 3 so they take 3 to make 20 and then take another 3 to make 17.

Free Y2 maths worksheet: Understand subtraction (pg 1)

This maths worksheet uses the subtraction sign with numbers up to 10. The sign for subtraction could well be new to children of this age. Think of the statement 7 – 4 as a sentence which can be read as:

7 minus 4

7 subtract 4

or 7 take away 4.

A number line can be helpful here. To take 4 from 7 start with the larger number which is 7, and then make four hops back, first to 6, then 5, then 4 then 3.

There is a number line on the worksheet, but it would be better to provide your own.

Many children will use their fingers to count the number of hops backwards they have made, there is nothing wrong with this. Alternatively they can mark the hops backwards on the number line itself.

Free Y1 maths worksheet: Use the subtraction sign (pg 1)

By the end of year 6 children should know and be able to read, write and use the following words:

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

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 maths worksheet contains the types of question that often come up in their SATs at the end of the year and often prove to be one of the questions that large numbers of children get wrong. A mirror really is very useful for this.

Free Y6 maths worksheet: Reflective symmetry (pg 1)