Tag: mental arithmetic

Today I have published the first of our next sets of mental arithmetic for year 3. This is the first of another 12 sets for the spring term, which will build up to another 24 pages of 10 questions.

This week I am looking at rounding, using terms such as ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ as well as finding numbers half way between two other numbers.

The rounding questions are straightforward and a good check to see if children understand this idea.

Watch out for the question, ‘500 is 100 more than which number?’ Many children will not think how this has been phrased and answer 600, when the correct answer is 400.

Finding ten less than a number which is just over the hundreds boundary (eg ten less than 207) can also prove tricky. There are several approaches, including

Taking ten from the 20 tens in 207, leaving 19 tens and 7 or 197.

Counting back 7 to 200 and then another 3 to 197.

Remember to ask children how they worked out the answers.

Year 3 mental arithmetic: (sets 25 and 26)

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)

Here we have another two sets of ten mental arithmetic questions for Year 3. This week the questions concentrate on adding three small numbers, time and finding 100 less than a number.

When adding three digits mentally it is usually easier to do it in the order that the question is spoken because it is easier to retain the three correct numbers ‘in your head’. However, still look for pairs of numbers which make multiples of 10 as this makes the question much easier to answer.

Perhaps a point to raise here is that each of the questions should be read out loud at least twice, if not more, to gice children the best chance of answering correctly.

By the end of year 3 children should be quite confident with time questions and adding minutes to a set time.

Year 3_Mental Arithmetic_Sets 23 and 24

Here we have the next two sets of questions in the Year 3 Mental Arithmetic series. This week the questions concentrate on using the vocabulary of addition and subtraction, including:

What is the sum of….?

What is the total of….?

What must I add to …. to make ….?

How many more than … is …?

How many less than … is …?

It is very useful to spend some time on asking children how they approach these questions, ‘in their heads’. For example:

‘What must I add to 7 to make 20?’ can be approached in several ways.

One way is to add on 3 to make 10 and then 10 more to make 20.

Another way is to add 10 and then count on 3.

A further method would be to take 10 from 20 and then count back 3 more.

By asking children to explain their methods it makes them think about what they have done and they will often see that there is a more efficient method than the one they used. The ultimate aim of this is to develop quick and efficient methods which produce correct answers.

Year 3 Mental Arithmetic: Sets_21 and 22

Continuing with our weekly sets of mental arithmetic questions for Year 3 children, this week we concentrate on fractions and division. Not as hard as it sounds!

Many people these days think that as well as learning tables, children should learn their division facts. So they will know the 5 times table:

1 x 5 = 5, 2 x 5 = 10, 3 x 5 = 15 etc

but they should also know 15 divided by 5 = 3 etc.

The questions also look at finding tenths of numbers (divide by 10) and finding numbers which are half way between two consecutive numbers. Getting these correct will show a good understanding of number.

Year 3 Mental arithmetic (sets 17 and 18)

Here we continue with our sets of mental arithmetic questions, suitable for Year 3 children.

This week the questions concentrate on the two, five and ten times tables as well as some money questions. The money questions look at how many coins are needed to make totals. Expect quite a fast response to these questions as tables should be know off by heart.

There are several ways for children to respond to these questions. One way is to give them a sets of number cards so that they can hold up their answer. it makes a change from writing the answers down. Teachers find this an effective way of making sure all children in the class make a response, not just leaving it to those who like to answer out loud. It can also lead to good discussions on how the answers were worked out.

Year 3 Mental arithmetic: sets 15 and 16.

Two more sets of mental arithmetic questions suitable for Year 3 children. There are plenty of word problems this week which some children find much harder than just being given a sum to work out.

Perhaps one of the hardest types of question is the’ finding the number half way between’. Another tricky type of question is the ‘I think of a number and subtract’ type. This is difficult because finding the answer does not necessarily involve carrying out the operation spoken in the question. For example, I think of a number and subtract 12. The answer is 20. The answer can be found by adding (not subtracting) 20 and 12. Watch for the common error of answering 8 for this question.

Year 3 mental arithmetic sets 13 and 14