Maths Activities

Reception

One of the first number skills your child will learn is counting. Practising counting will help them will all sorts of number problems that they will encounter as they get older.

Count everything!

Try to get into the habit of counting when you are out and about. For example:

How many buses have we seen?

How many bugs are in the garden?

How many lamp posts are on the street?

How many squirrels have we seen?

Building things with bricks is a good way of developing maths skills through solving problems. For example:

How many red bricks are there?

How many blue bricks are there?

How many are there altogether?

Key Stage 1

Helping your children become confident with numbers and number facts in Reception and Key Stage 1 will really help your child as they move through the school. Below are some activities you might like to try with your child:

Count objects around the house

When counting, encourage your child to point to each object, putting them in a row. For more than 10 objects, group into tens to see that, for example, 32 is 3 tens and 2 ones. Practise counting in twos, fives or tens using, for example, pairs of socks, fingers on hands or 10p coins.

Play dice games

Gather some objects – blocks, buttons, even biscuits! Roll two dice and find the total, using the objects to add practically. Or start with, say, 12 objects, roll a dice and subtract the number shown on the dice to find how many objects are left. The player with more objects wins.

Tell stories

Make up addition and subtraction stories together. For example: Two badgers, three hedgehogs and a toad have a picnic. How many animals are there altogether? Four rabbits join in. How many are there now? Two animals go home. How many are left?

Partition numbers

Partitioning means to break numbers into parts. Use objects, such as straws grouped in tens, to show numbers split into tens and ones. How many ways can your child find to partition a number?

For example, 54 could be 50 + 4, 40 + 14, 30 + 24, 20 + 34, or 10 + 44.

The Topmarks website also includes lots of fun, online games that you might like to try with your child:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/counting

Key Stage 2

For children in Key Stage 2 knowing the times tables off by heart is an essential skill. Below are some suggestions of ways you can help your child to practise at home:

What is the question?
Give the answer from a times table and your child has to respond with
the question ie:
The answer is 12. What is the question? 4x3 2x6
(answers and questions to focus on maths target timestable)
Chant the times table together in different voices!
Jumble up the answers from a times table and time how quickly your
child can put them in the correct order.
Write the times table out in a line but put a couple of the answers in the
wrong place. Can your child spot the mistake and put them in the
correct order.
Continue to use Times table Rockstars as a computer related task.