Maths for advanced 6/7 year old - recommendations?

[Snowboardmum73]

My daughter has a natural love of maths - she’s year 2 aged 6 soon to be 7.

She loves maths esp maths with numbers.

her school maths is way to easy for her - I have spoken to he teacher and will again. They give her handouts but the last lot we got were from 4 years above her. She did 40% on her own but nothing in the handouts explained the principles first, and which for some maths she still needs.

we have tried numberbots and doodle maths - none of which are varied enough for her…she likes to learn different types of maths and not on timers - she would have had time to solve and think.

Any recommendations for programmes? I don’t mind paying. I really want something that will explain the principles first.

we also do all the KS2 and KS1 workbooks online but she’s done most of them and again, it would be nice if it was something more of a game..

she does it because she likes it so i want it to still me fun for her - thanks

This is such excellent advice.

I think lots of us have an urge to focus on what a child already excels at when really, we should be doing the opposite to make sure they're well rounded.

I'm a Twinkl subscriber and I've found it to be super helpful with my daughter's maths and english learning at home, they have a thing called subject support and this is so helpful as a parent as I've no clue what she should be learning and how to push her on, I'll drop you the link in case you find it useful... https://www.twinkl.co.uk/subjectsupport x

It's not about that though is it, that's not what the op was asking.
Some children love maths and want to do more of it. Why shouldn't they?

I always wonder why this makes some people so uncomfortable.

And I can guarantee you if op said her daughter loved art, or football, or reading, noone would be giving these responses.

@Snowboardmum73 I have always loved Maths (and heaps of other things too) and I am so grateful to my parents for getting me extra work books and letting me do more of something I enjoyed

My DD does times tables or maths sums before bed " to relax" . I sometimes catch my son out of bed doing weird and wonderful maths calculations. It's sad some people don't realise you can do maths for pleasure actually.

Dh has a maths based degree and both my children loved maths from an early age, found it very easy and were bored in school especially Ds2. As they both attended state primary, secondary and sixth form where they did maths and further maths A levels there is nowhere for them to go. ie if they were to sit GCSE maths at aged 12, there are no lessons to go to, no teachers to teach them. Ds2 spent year 10 getting 98% on all GCSE past maths papers, he was bored out of his mind for year 11. There were no teachers available to teach further maths. There is a teacher retention crisis.

We did what everyone else is suggesting and look away from the curriculum and into the wider world of maths. Both mine attended code clubs at primary and this led onto other coding meetups for children. We played strategy board games, did logic puzzles with them and they learned to play chess. They did the UKMT challenges too.

@ILikeBigBookssandIcannotlie if you have ever been in a classroom they teach to the middle ability. They don't usually put children into sets in primary, they provide "challenge" work for the high ability but it has to be within the bounds of the curriculum for that year group. I have been in a class where they teach bus stop method for division, they walk them through 246 divided by 2 on the board and the children write it on their whiteboards. Think about how long that takes, so 2 divided by 2 is? Jessica? 1, correct. Now 4 divided by 2? The teacher says let's now do 369 divided by 3 and before they have even drawn it all out on the board the high ability children have written it and solved it, sitting there waiting for the teacher to walk through that. There is nowhere to go with it in primary or secondary really.

Art is once a week and maths is every day. Reading is massively encouraged for story ideas, vocabulary enrichment, looking at sentence structure and introducing children to other cultures, religions, places and countries. This includes sci-fi, comic book stories, factual books, history etc. No one would discourage reading or comprehension.

It’s not about not encouraging the maths, I also found what else my DC really enjoyed and excelled in. It turned out its languages and memorising things and sports. He was fluent in Spanish by the end of primary school despite the rest of the family not being able to speak more than a few words in other languages.

We had fun with the Sherlock bones books and secret codes for spy kids etc

My son is also advanced with maths - always has been but at that we just taught him lots of card games and played maths related games with him. Didn’t feel the need to race ahead with the curriculum. He’s 10 now and can understand his brothers maths homework (who is 13). School give him extra work / more difficult work in class but other than that we dont do anymore. He’s a reluctant reader so we focus our time on that.

It's possible to do all those things and allow them to do extra maths for the sheer fun of it though. It's not an either /or thing

Because the op is talking about getting her six year old extra maths workbooks. And whilst it's good to let kids do things they enjoy, having a six year old who's 'advanced' in maths...or, in fact, anything else... and spending all their time on it, whilst being unable to ride a bike, swim a length, read a book or whatever, is likely to result in a poor outcome for the child.

Not saying that that's necessaily the case with the op's dd but I do know dc where this has absolutely happened so I think it was a valid point the pp made.

Both my kids are very good at all their education thankfully so completely rounded. Youngest is naturally better at math - so we do worksheets (yes, for fun) that's in line with what she's working on in school and next steps up, we do coding (work in the field so we build robots and code with those education sets teachers get), we've also created some pc games and play them together. Board game too, mostly strat as partner and I enjoy them and the kids wanted to join from younger age so they are well versed now. We also do engineering tasks with the youngest so building fun stuff like automatic fart spray thing was the most recent and thinking of adding a sensor. We've made a disc launcher too, partner and her have made various traps around the house which can be fun and annoying - with things bought from b&q and amazon lol. Raspberry pi also. We've dabbled in basic chemistry with the help of family members who know more than us but theres the basics you can do with household ingredients! So we do maths but in various different ways.
The eldest gets top two grades in maths but she's more into books and sport so we have to do other engaging things with her but the youngest specifically excels in math and sport too. The worksheets I buy books off amazon, the links above other parents have shared, any educational website and sometimes use ai to create worksheets. All the things we do above require math as a basis so she's doing math without doing math. Oh and the youngest does chess but she's not that bothered about it.

I hate to be blunt, but it's all rather expensive to be honest. Only reason we are capable is because I majored in math and partner in mechanical engineering (and work in coding) so we have a background and general interest in doing the things we do with the kids. Like these things are generally our hobbies so we don't mind the expense, we have many things available to us anyway for fun like laser printers because we're nerdy type.

It's crazy to think the things we did in uni we're using with the kids now and they're like sponges and understanding things we did aged 22+!

Also like others have said, she needs to expand in multiple things not just math. Both my girls do sports (the youngest is in a sport school specifically and we moved abroad for it) and play an instrument and have a big social life. They also have had home tasks since theyve been little and eldest cooking and youngest helps me in the kitchen, weighing things etc. I'm absolutely exhausted but they're thriving! A lot of our time is spent providing and preparing all of this. Oh and gardening too growing own food and troubleshooting growth and we add things to soil which requires math. We literally do math everywhere actually. Deals in shops too.

The eldest also has upped her social life more now that she's going on 11. So her interest to do extra work has dwindled. We've allowed it - I don't want her to grow up with issues. Overall we do what the kids vibe is. We expect the youngest to up her social life when older too but for now we're having fun doing madness with her hah and we're reliving our early 20's!

But it doesn't have to be one or the other. There's plenty of time to do maths for fun and swim and dance and read and draw and play. Particularly if children aren't glued to screens.

It's really sad that everyone's default is to just attack the idea, when it gives some children lots of pleasure and can be relaxing.

The poster I was responding to said: “Let her be a child, encourage other interests…”

My point was that if a child wants to spend her time doing maths, then that should not be discouraged. Just because some children don’t think maths is fun, it doesn’t mean hers doesn’t. I think children should be supported to follow their interests, whether academic or otherwise.

I wouldn’t try to teach her things that you aren’t entirely sure about. I agree with several above - look for a coding club of some sort, find some good maths games, let her work out recipes for baking proportions… just lots of different examples. I wouldn’t try to push her forward in the curriculum, I’d give her really strong real world experience.

I have one maths themed kid and one very much not.

I'd focus on depth and capability of skills over expanse of skills.

If she won't do numbots because she doesn't like timers, that in itself is useful to push because it teaches perseverance and really beds in those essential skills, rather than just moving on to more stuff she likes becaise she finds it easy.

Knowing how to do addition and subtraction quickly are the skills she will use most frequently in life.

You could explore written maths as well as digital because even kids that can do maths find it useful to write and present numbers.

Sherlock Bones maths books are really fun

Give her things that allow her to enjoy and apply her maths in other ways - challenging board games, chess, learning a musical instrument, learning computer coding, shape & logic puzzles like the smartgames brand ones.

Don't get overexcited to label her as "advanced" either - in reality the primary maths curriculum is heavily focused on the four operations (addition, subtraction, division & multiplication), you tend to get 3 or 4 in every class who just have a natural speed/ automaticity with numbers who won't be challenged by any of it (mine is one of these DC). It doesn't always translate to brilliance later on when concepts become more abstract.

Its easy to think they "need" more "challenge", they don't really and by introducing concepts from later on in the curriculum you will just make them bored at school as nothing is ever new.