good maths workbooks or downloadable worksheets for KS1 - year 1

[dragontwo]

Hello all, DS is just finishing reception and I want to give him a head start over the summer for maths for year 1. Can anyone recommend any really good workbooks or worksheets I can print at home?

He loves dinosaurs so anything dino-related would be an added bonus.

Although he's a bright kid I've got no idea about how to teach maths so any pointers welcome :)

Carol Volderman did some books which my kids enjoyed and we picked up a different book in WHSmiths called “my big ks1 workbook” you get a gold sticker on each page which my DD loves. We bought it for the school hols as she has a very active mind and enjoyed doing it. Plus we got her a simple word search book and now we are teaching her sudoku as she likes the little puzzle books. She’s still 6 but at the end of year2 now.

www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=527215&catalogId=10051&searchTerm=carol+volderman

www.amazon.co.uk/Gold-Stars-Workbook-Year-Stage/dp/147488184X?tag=mumsnetforum-21

There are Year 1 KS1 workbooks for sale in WHSmith (not just the CV one).
For something a bit different, you could try Mathletics online.

A few tips:
Part of the challenge for kids is being able to read and understand the question. I found that while dd was fine with equations in numbers, it initially threw her when the equation was described in words.

Mental arithmetic, using number lines, counting up in 2s, 5s and 10s are all important and can be practised at home without any special workbooks. Basically its moving on from counting everything in 1s on fingers...

We use the coloured cubes (that join together) to explain and help with multiplication and division.

The workbooks also cover telling the time, using money and dimensions (length, width, height), weight. It isn't just arithmetic. All of these can be practised without workbooks.

There are new activity books from Oxford called Progress with Oxford which look fun.

As a maths teacher my advice is to ditch the workbooks but focus on the maths around you. Weighing out ingredients, adding numbers on number plates, making number stories for house numbers etc. 5 year olds need to know maths is practical and fun not just workbooks and boredom