Bonfire night maths worksheet: percentages

Thanks to urbrainy.com for letting me publish this page. There are more bonfire night pages on their site, which you can trial free of charge at urbrainy.com

It’s always nice to have something topical to use as part of the maths curriculum. Here we have a page on percentages, linked to the theme of bonfire night, or fireworks.

Four different kinds of fireworks are on sale, with 20% off. The questions involve working out how much the boxes cost and how much in the way of savings can be made.

Finding 20% is relatively straightforward if done in two parts:

first find 10% by dividing by 2

find 20% by doubling the answer.

You can find this page in my Year 6, Understanding Number section.

Thanks to urbrainy.com for letting me publish this page. There are more bonfire night pages on their site, which you can trial free of charge at urbrainy.com

Bonfire night percentages

Year 3 mental arithmetic

It is easy to miss this growing set of resources for year 3, tucked away in the Know Number Facts category of the year 3 section. If you are working with year 3 children this is a very useful set of mental arithmetic questions.

So far there have been 24 sets of questions published and further sets will be published for each of the next two terms. They consists of two sets of ten questions, followed by an answer sheet. Each set is a full A4 page so that they can be used in several ways. If given orally the teacher/parent only needs to print the answer page as all the questions are included on this and the children can just write the answers or call them out. If the teacher/parent wants the child to read the questions then they can print out the question sheets as well. This could also be shown on a whiteboard for a whole class to work on at the same time.

The first set of questions concentrate on writing whole numbers, counting on and back in tens, addition, subtraction and place value.

Year 3 Mental arithmetic (sets 1and 2)

Question 19 from SATS Paper A 2010

Dotty paper and right angles are a favourite with the SAT paper writers, but they never make it quite straightforward, as the right angle to be found or drawn is never along horizontal or vertical lines.

There are just two possible answers to this. Either answer will gain one mark.
Slight inaccuracies in drawing are allowed. This means within a radius of 2mm of the correct point.

Some children will instantly see where the right angle will be, but there are several ways to make it easier.
One way is simply to turn the paper so that the line AB is running horizontally in front of you. This makes it easier to perceive a right angle.
Another approach is to use a right angle, such as the corner of a piece of paper and slide one edge of the paper along the line AB, with the corner at A and then mark where the other edge crosses a dot.
Don’t forget that a ruler must be used.
Why not visit ks2-maths-sats.co.uk for free SATs papers and a great SAT revision programme?

Question 19 from SATS Paper A 2010

Question 19 answer and suggested methods

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.

Year 6 maths worksheet: Adding fractions

One of the big stumbling blocks in maths is working with fractions, especially addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The problem is caused by a lack of understanding of what a fraction actually means and how they can be manipulated to make the task easier. (Equivalent fractions being the key.)

A common fault when adding fractions is for a child to simply add the two top numbers and then add the two bottom numbers. This will always lead to a wrong answer and it is important to stress to children that to add two fractions the bottom numbers (denominators) must be the same. The reason for this can easily be shown by cutting a shape in to different sized parts and then asking how much two of the parts could be.

This particular worksheet takes all the stress out of the problem as the denominators are already the same for each addition question. Where an answer can be simplified a further answer is expected.

Adding fractions

Maths SAT Paper A 2010: Questions 17 and 18

Question 17 of the Maths SAT Paper A 2010 asks for three different numbers that add up to 40. Each number is less than 20 and each number is even.Surprisingly there are only four possible answers:
18 + 16 + 6
18 + 14 + 8
18 + 12 + 10
16 + 14 + 10
One mark given for any of these. The numbers can be given in any order.
Suggested method:
There are two key points here: firstly each even number is below 20 and secondly all the numbers are different.
I approached this by thinking what was the first even number below 20, which of course is 18. I took 18 from 40, leaving 22. I then thought of two even numbers that made 22. (20 and 18 had already gone) so 16 and 6 would be fine.

Question 18 is all about negative numbers and counting back in steps of 125.

Subtracting 125 from 50 is tricky and best done making notes rather than trying to write a standard subtraction method out. The best way is to subtract 50 taking the number to zero. Work out that 75 more needs to be subtracted, making -75.
Subtracting another 125 is easier now that both numbers are negative. Mentally adding 75 and 125 will give 200 so the same process with negative numbers will give -200.
Children find negative numbers quite tricky and this is a question which many will get wrong.

Questions 17 and 18 from SATs Paper A 2010

Questions 17 and 18 answers and suggested methods.

Year 3 maths worksheet: more mental division

This page has 14 division questions which should be answered mentally. It keeps to the easier times tables, including 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x and 10 x tables. Children who have a good knowledge of times tables should whizz through this in little time. If tables are not known it becomes a much more laborious process.

The early questions are set out in the usual form with the number to be inputted being the answer to the division calculation. The later questions have different parts of the division number sentence missing. An example:

12 divided by ? = 2

Here the relationship between division and multiplication comes into play. if it is known that 6 x 2 = 12 then this is easy.

More mental division practice

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)

 

KS2 Maths Paper 2010: Questions 16

Symmetry is a favourite topic for the SAT papers and this is a typical question. Four patterns of shapes are given and if a shape has symmetry mark it with a tick, if not, mark it with a cross. A maximum of 2 marks if all patterns of shapes are marked correctly. Interestingly, although it states that a tick or a cross must be used, other options will gain the marks.

Two marks are also given if:
a. If two correct are ticked and incorrect two are not marked at all.
b. If correct lines of symmetry are drawn and the other two shapes left blank.
c. If other alternative and unambiguous signs are given eg Y and N.

One mark is given if three of the four diagrams are ticked or crossed correctly.

Suggested method:
Children are usually given a small mirror to help with symmetry questions. The mirror can be placed along potential lines of symmetry and look from either side. If it is symmetrical the shape will look like the original.
Without a mirror, it is a little trickier. Probably the best way is to draw a potential line of symmetry on the shape and imagine what it would be like if folded along the line. If one half would fit exactly over the other it is symmetrical.

Question 16 from SATs Paper A 2010

Question 16 answers and suggested method

Multiplying 2 and 3-digit numbers by 10 or 100

Today I have published another multiplying worksheet, suitable for Year 4 children. Of course, multiplying by ten is easy; just move each digit one place to the left and place a zero in the units. Repeat this for multiplying by 100, but avoid the trap of saying ‘add a nought’.

This page has incomplete number sentences. Often the answer is given and the numbers to be multiplied have to be found. This leads to a little more thought and develops the relationship between multiplication and division.

This page can be found in the Year 4 Calculating section of the site.

Multiplying 2 or 3-digit numbers by 10 or 100