Helping your children with numeracy

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Helping your children with numeracy

• It all adds up!

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How do we teach mathematics?
Daily mathematics lessons
Shape, space and measures
Handling data
Number
Mental maths
Using and applying
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Aims of Mathematics

• Children will be able to
• Build and apply mathematical skills and knowledge
• Develop as numerate thinkers
• Apply knowledge to solve increasingly complex
  problems
• Use the language of mathematics to reason and
  explain

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Partnership
Education is a partnership between home and
school!
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Maths at home

• Phone number sums
• What do all the digits in your phone number add
  up to? Can you find 10 phone numbers in the phone
  book with the same total as your phone number?
• Journey planning
• Get out a road atlas and find the chart that
  shows
• distances between towns and cities. Find
  Bramhall and
• choose five places you would like to visit.
• Which is the furthest?
• Which is the nearest?
• If you were travelling at 30mph how long would
  it take
• you to get to each place?

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Maths at the shops

• Tables Practice -Counting sets
• Two Twin packs of orange juice, yoghurts, socks
• Threes Bars of soap, packs of sandwiches, packs
  of biscuits
• Fours Packs of bread rolls, chicken pies,
  fingers on a chocolate bar.
• Weight
• Check for things that weigh exactly 1 kg. Use a
  1kg packet to find things that are less than,
  equal to or greater than 1 kg
• Percentages
• What would the shopping items in your trolley
  be worth if prices were cut by 50, 25 10 20.
  What if they were all two
• for one?

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Maths and money

• Pizza and Fractions
• Your pizza cost 3.60. Cut it into six equal
  slices, how much does each slice cost? How much
  is half a slice? How much does half the whole
  pizza cost? What if the pizza was cut into
  quartershow much does one slice cost now? Is it
  more or less than when it was cut into 6? Why?
• Supercalifrajalisticexpealidoutius
• How may letters has it got? If the vowels are
  worth 5p, and the consonants cost 10p how much
  would that be? How much is your name worth? How
  many words can you write for 1.00?
• How much for one?
• Use your calculator to find out how much is one
  stick of
• chewing gum, a finger of a chocolate bar, a
  segment of a
• tangerine

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Maths on time

• Using a diary
• Plan out a daily timetable, including school
  routines, after school clubs and homework days.
• Planning a holiday
• Your flight leaves at 10.50 is that day or
  night? What time do you need to be at the
  airport? How long is the journey?

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Maths on time

• Beat the clock
• Time your child as they count back from 100 in
  10s, count back from 75 in 5s, start at 6
  counting in 10s to 206, start at 37 an count in
  30s to 367.
• World family
• When your having your lunch what are your
  relatives doing in Hong Kong, Los Angeles,
  Sydney?

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Maths takes shape

• Flatten it!
• Get an empty cereal box (3D) and undo at the
  seams by undoing the edges. Flatten the box out
  and see its shape as a 2 dimensional shape.
  (This is called a net.) Look at the nets of other
  box shapes.
• Visualising shapes
• Close your eyes, imagine there is a cube in
  front of you. What shape is one side (or face)
  of a cube? How many sides has it got? How many
  corners? How many edges? Try with other shapes.

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Maths in play

• Dominoes
• Spread a set of dominoes face down on the table.
  Each player chooses a domino at the same time.
  Add the numbers on the domino together. Whoever
  has the largest number keeps both dominoes. You
  can change this by subtracting the dots from a
  given number, or multiplying them.
• Ive got a number in my pocket!
• My number is less than 100 but what is it? Can
  you find out what it is in twenty questions? Is
  it odd or even? Is it more
• or less than 50? Will it divide by 5?

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Maths in play

• Football crazy
• Your team is unbeaten in the first ten games of
  the season
• WWDWDDDWWD Where a win (w) is 3 points and a
  draw (d) is one point and a loss (l) is 0 points
  How many points has your team got.
• Car number games
• Look at the three digits on a car number plate
  (eg. 562) what is the biggest number you can make
  by rearranging the digits? (652). What is the
  smallest number? (256) Add/multiply the digits
  together. Count up or down in 10s from that
  number. Divide/multiply the number by 10.
• Striker
• Your favourite football striker is scoring in
  every game. His record is 2,1,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,4
  what is his average (mean) number of goals in
  each
• game?

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Maths and people

• Hands up
• Ask your child to draw round their hand, then
  around yours. Next place 1p coins inside the
  outline of the hands. How much is their hand
  worth. Whose hand is worth more? Is it worth
  twice as much if its done with 2ps? How much is
  it worth with 5ps?
• Wide boy
• Measure your arm span. Compare the width of
  your arm span with the rest of your body. Do it
  with other members of the family, what do you
  find?

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Maths and people

• How many days old are you?
• Take your age in years and multiply by 365.
  Remember 366 in a leap year. Count the number of
  days since your last birthday and add them
  altogether. Work out how many minutes old you
  are?
• How much do you weigh?
• Weigh your child on the bathroom scales. Weigh
  them again while theyre holding a family pet.
  Can they work out how
• much heavier they are? Can they find two things
  
• heavier/lighter around the house?

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Maths at work

• Taxi driving
• How many left/right hand turns were there from
  home?
• Tips
• 10 of the bill is the usual amount. As this is
  one tenth divide the total by 10. Calculate the
  tip for your taxi driver, waiter, hairdresser
  etc.
• VAT
• Work out the VAT at 17.5 Find 10 , halve to
  find 5, halve again to find 2.5 then add them
  all together. What is the VAT on your fish and
  chips?
• Going metric
• 1 Kilogram bag of sugar is about 2lbs (2.2lbs to
  be exact)
• How many pounds would 5 kgs of potatoes weigh?

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What can you use to help your children?

• A globe of the earth
• Plastic measuring jugs
• A tape measure
• A childrens Atlas and road maps
• Kitchen scales
• Plastic measuring spoons (teaspoon, table spoon
  etc)
• Stopwatch
• Lots of board games

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Other information available

• BBC TV
• Improving Numeracy with Dynamo (5-9yrs)
• Megamaths (7-9yrs)
• The Learning Zone (adults)
• BBC radio
• Maths Challenge (9-11yrs)
• Phone number 08700 100 222
• www.bbc.co.uk/education
• Channel 4
• The Number Crew (5-7 yrs)
• TVM (7-11 yrs)
• Phone number 01926 436 444
• www.channel4.com/schools