Maths resources 5 year old

[Taytotots]

My 5 year old twins are in their first year of school (not UK) and seem to be struggling a bit with maths. They do a lot of worksheets and it is all obviously basic at the moment but concepts like counting in gives or twos thy just don't seem to get. I know there are lots of online resources to drill for times tables, addition etc but wondering if there is a book or website that will help me explain concepts like place and grouping numbers to them so they really get the concepts rather than just being drilled (hope that is clear enough - you can see why I need the book!).

[Taytotots]

Gives not gives!

[AliTheMinx]

Try Mathleticss or ICT Games xx

[Taytotots]

Thanks Ali. Will look into those.

[user789653241]

www.khanacademy.org/math

This is the best maths website that explains everything in details step by step with video tutorials, and it's free.

[viques]

They are still very young to be 'learning 'concepts from worksheets especially if they are still hesitant about basic counting skills, many children take a while to be confident that 7 is always 7 for example. if your children need to recount small numbers of objects it means they haven't reached this yet. Try putting a few similar sized objects, say about 5 to start, (try toy cars or Lego bricks) , then ask the child to close their eyes, cover a few of the objects then ask how many have you covered, as they get more confident then increase the original number. Make sure they get the chance to be the one in charge of 'covering' while you guess.

Also try to encourage them to count on from a starting place that isn't 1, we've got eight Lego bricks , let's put some more out, 9,10,11,12, how many altogether.

Lots of other opportunities for number activities at home, especially as there are two of them! Sorting out socks into pairs then counting. lining up the family shoes in pairs, setting out cutlery/mats on the table.

Sweets like smarties are brilliant for number activities too , eg sort them into colours, which colour has the most, which the least, if I put the yellows and the Reds together how many smarties do I have altogether? How many more brown than red? What's the difference between the yellow and red? How many fewer blue than yellow? Five minutes then eat the smarties.

[catkind]

Agree with viques a lot of getting the concepts is about hands on practical things.
So e.g. you mention counting in 5s or 2s. For 5s the obvious thing to count is fingers/toes/other people's fingers. For 2s, pairs of socks, pairs of shoes/boots. Then they might move on to drawing the things (draw 5 pairs of socks/ 5 lots of 2 balls). Ultimately they can just imagine it. So when they're asked for 4 lots of 2 or whatever, they can conjure up a picture in their heads if they don't remember instantly.

[catkind]

I think I used to imagine 2 x whatever lego bricks when we first did 2 times tables.

[MimsyBorogroves]

Numicon is a great resource.

For online stuff, Hit the Button on topmarks is really good for quick recall.

[Norestformrz]

My new favourite maths app is

[user789653241]

Actually, I do totally agree with practical maths. You can use anything. Sweets, lego, stones beads, coins, stairs, cars, buildings, birds nests, house numbers, etc.

[Norestformrz]

https://www.mathplayground.com/mobilethinkingg_blocks.html

[Taytotots]

Thank you all. As you say viques and catkind the basics probably need reinforcing and lots of great ideas there - I suspect they'd particularly enjoy the smarties one and can't believe I hadn't thought of socks for twos plus that one would sort out my laundry pile. We do try and do a lot of counting generally - cooking, board games etc - but will definitely try doing more. Thanks very much for the app suggest too Irvine, mimsy (cool name!) and norest - will look into those too.