I can't do ds home work year 4

[Dustybrain]

DS is in year 4. And I can't do his home work. Not literally. But unless I use a calculator I don't know the answer. But obviously I can't just give him the answer. But I have no idea how to explain how he could work out the answer.

I have learning difficulties so I don't know how to help him

I'm
Sorry I don't know question 5

This app is a great recommendation and really easy to use. I wish this had been around when I was in school.

There’s a free website called Oak National Academy. Click on ‘pupil’ and then ‘subject’ and you can select various topics to go through. I’ll try and put a link on. 😬

www.thenational.academy/pupils/programmes/maths-primary-year-4/units/review-of-column-addition-and-subtraction-roman-numerals/lessons/review-column-addition-and-identify-the-addends-and-sum/overview

Hi OP I know what it feels like to feel totally inadequate when faced with your DC's homework. DC1 has been diagnosed with dyscalculia and I suspect I have it too.

Try doing the Duolingo maths course. It really helped!

The rectangle ( the one that looks like a piece of paper) has parallel sides -top and bottom and left and right- and the sides are perpendicular to each other as they meet at right angles.

@Dustybrain during covid, I was doing the maths with younger grandson and one day I just could not understand the example given!!! I taught him how to do it the way I was taught 60 years ago. after he submitted his work, i messaged his teacher and told her why he was doing it that way. she said they were going to be doing it that way in 2 weeks time but they had to teach them this way first!!! their way took 20 steps to my way of 4 steps!! It was like they just had to pluck a random number out of the air and work around it!! made absolutely no sense to teach them the most difficult way!

Yeah do this, this is better then my pasta idea you can't eat dry pasta but smarties 😋

Sounds frustrating @Dustybrain , and hopefully you can find something in one of these replies that will help.

The way I ‘use times tables to do division’ would be to count up on my fingers as I go. So….
8 divided by 2,
count on you fingers 2, 4, 6, 8.

so you’re using the 2 times table to get up to 8. Ok how many fingers are you holding up? Should be four.

same steps for the question in the homework. 27 divided by 3, Use the 3 times table to count up to 27.

3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27.
how many fingers are you holding up? Should be 9,

if you run out of fingers, draw a dot on the page to represent each finger.
if you don’t know the 3 times table maybe google all the times tables and print it out so that you can refer to it.

Hope this helps

Why are parents doing homework on top of everything else? Don't we have enough to deal with?

I never had any support for homework from my parents except "do your homework" and I turned out fine.

Well, bully for you! TheOP clearly wants to support her son and perhaps learn a little bit herself, what's wrong with that?

Can your DS get homework support in school if he is struggling to do it independently? Or how about a tutor or Kumon for him? Ideally you want to find a way he can work things out himself. Not being able to help with homework comes to all of us parents at some point.

I'm confused why everyone's talking about dividing? At least I learnt what perpendicular is...

@dustybrain my schools is very big on children knowing that times tables (multiplication) is the opposite of division - we tend to teach children the two in tandem when they get to the higher up years. This is especially the case in Y4 as they do their tables test later on.

So, 27 divided by 3 is 9, and 3 x 9 = 27.

48 / 4 = 12, and 12 x 4 = 48.

Perpendicular (now you've got me thinking!) is used in shape. It describes a line that intersects another at 90 degrees (a right angle).

Any meanings you're unsure of, I would recommend Twinkl's glossary - I use it a lot as it explains things pretty succinctly.

Pretty bloody hard homework, to be fair!

To be fair. I have older children as well. I never helped then when they were younger. And still don't now. My younger ones don't normally do home work. Its only because ds asked to.

snap. I tried to teach one of mine what I considered a more logical method than the convoluted one her teacher had shown her - oh no, not a chance because that is not what "miss" said to do.

I took a very popular UG maths course the year after it had been rewritten by the "maths in education" team. The actual mathematicians hated teaching it and I found it tedious and wordy.

IT makes me cross because I was a very numerate child and my literacy lagged behind that - so much modern maths requires kids to be literate as well as numerate so they can't forge ahead in something they are really good at because of needing a different set of skills in something else.

What's a kumon? definitely can't get a tutor I think I will talk to his teacher and ask her.

Hi op, I actually think the fact he can’t do it is fine as means he needs some extra help understanding it in class. So will be good for the teacher to know that.

I'm 33, have a masters degree, an Apprenticeship in statistics and am going to be doing a PhD in 2025. I do not know my times tables (suspect adhd has something to do with this!). Don't beat yourself up OP, maths is hard!

Kumon is a chain of after school lesson providers, mostly in maths and English.

OP, since the self help approaches suggested here seem unlikely to work for you, could you ask his teacher how to help him, explaining your difficulties so s/he understands that you need something external?

When my kids were in yr 4 there was a homework club that they could attend where staff and volunteers helped out. Alternatively, there might be another parent who could help if you ask (do you have a class What’sAp or something)? Or the teacher might be able to put a few minutes aside every week after school or in a break to go over it with your DC (and you, if that would be useful). Or are your older kids able to help him?

It’s great that you’re responding to his enthusiasm to do the homework by trying to help him out. I’m sure there will be a solution if you ask for some support.

You could print out a times table like this. I feel like that should help, but I'm not sure.

www.papertraildesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Times-table-color.jpg

Another reason why I didn't have children 😂. I struggled with maths from first year in the Juniors with learning the times table culminating in an E at O'level, I have no idea how I got that, maybe a mark for writing my name and turning up to the exam. I couldn't even look at the OP's child's book without breaking out in a sweat and a having a sense of panic.

No need to help him. I'm an ex primary teacher and always preferred children to just do it alone. That's not a popular stance here though.

If it's being assigned as homework, it should be practising what they've done in class so if he has no clue then the teacher needs to know.

Ask him to write down any ideas on how he would tackle a question even if it's just the first step and even if it's wrong.
Does he have any recollection of learning it? If so can he try the steps he remembers or something close to them even if he doesn't get to the answer? Evidence of what children are thinking as they look at the question is more helpful than a blank page. Don't worry if it's all wrong.

Put a note in his homework diary - something like "Bobby spent 20 minutes going through it but said he didn't know how to do most of it. I read the questions out but this didn't help. As you can see, he was able to multiply numbers together but didn't know how to use his timetables to divide. He also couldn't remember what the word perpendicular means."

Can you ask the school? My DD's school use a lot at online resources like short maths videos, these might help you?
Or they might be able to recommend some YouTube videos or similar.

Perpendicular basically means one line is going up and down while the other is going from side to side. For example if you were painting a door frame and you painted along the top and then down the side, you would have painted two perpendicular lines. The corner is 90 degrees, otherwise known as a right angle - that is two different ways of describing the same thing. Your home will be full of right angles and perpendicular (and parallel) lines.