Number Bonds - What are they?

[cloudpuff]

Hope someone can help me as I almost made myself look like a wally in front of my dd.
She is in year 1 and likes to "teach" me what she is learning, anyway this morning she asked me to tell her the "number bonds of 10" I didnt have a clue what she was talking about so made out like we had to rush or we'd be late. Can anyone tell me what it means so I can impress her with my brainyness when she gets in tonight.

Thanks

They can be refered to as 'Numbers in love!'

The use of butterflies is a great visual way of working. It is also really easy to extend as they get more confident. I.E.

4 + 6 = 10
40 + 60 = 100
400 + 600 = 100

So you could start off with the 4 + 6 butter fly on the wall, then put the 40 + 60 under it later.

Sorry this works so much better visually than trying to explain it!

I had this in my year 2 and 3 classrooms, it really helped to make links.

It is worth remembering that the reason we teach these things it to try and get children to understand the links and tricks we all use instinctively in every day life. Believe ot or not some children think that they must learn the answer to EVERY SUM! rather than use known facts. It is way a lot of children (particularly girls) struggle with number work, it jsut seems like a never ending mountain to them. (Can you tell i did a research project on it recently, twas fascinating!)

Thank you so much for taking time to find out and support your child. I am always willing to offer help with terms and methods, just PM me.

haggisaggis we used that song too!

You think it's bad being tested by your dc, mine insists on Skyping my (childfree) mates in the evenings and asking them "What's 1 add 9? What's 2 add 8?" and you can see them thinking "errr they all make 10 what the hell are you going on about?". One of my mates did this from Bolivia last week for heaven's sake :) Ds thinks it's brilliant as it's more interactive than when he interrogates the cat.

I'm sure it's good for them, my mental arithmetic and basic numeracy in general is absolutely rubbish. I understand (well, did once) double precision floating point though! Haven't told ds about that yet.

Laura- I can see how it would have helped some but for someone like me it would have confused something that I would have understood very quickly normally. I'm sure I'm not the only one

[boggle] at chunking

The thing is about chunking is that more children seem to get it more quickly and use it efficiently than other methods. But if a child is using another method efficiently and accurately then no one should discourage them.

We used a method similar to chunking for long division I think.

Thank you for all the lovely replies and thanks for the offer of help, just had a look at the chunking thing and I may well take you up on it when we get to that stage.

She wanted to test me when she came home last night and it turns out she knows them up to 15 quite easily, do you think I should help with up to 20 or just keep practising up to 15 and wait until she learns up to 20 at school.

When she tests family and friends on things she has learnt I can see them thinking I'm being a pushy parent when really its far from it, if she relied on me for math she would still be counting to five.

Bronze - that is how I felt, once I knew what it was it was easy. Perhaps the school should give out a basic list with the terminology. I know if I had not found out on here what it was I was have been to embarrased to ask the school and I suppose its the children who would lose out.

Do to 20, easier than to 15 because you are totalling to a tens number.

I would never be embarrassed to ask the teacher to explain a maths term. The reason you may not understand is because maths is taught so differently now and the teachers are all aware of this! It's nothing to do with your maths ability, just that you were taught a different way.

I had to ask my DS1s teacher what number lines were for adding and subtracting - I think he was Yr2 at the time and she 'held me back' after the school pick up and gave me a little lesson in the classroom! It was great, DS1 was there too so he sort of learnt it all over again. Of course when my DH got home that evening the story of the day from DS1 was 'mummy didn't understand my maths so Miss C had to teach her!'

I ended up 'teaching' it to a few other parents at a coffee morning shortly afterwards because they didn't know either. It might be worth asking the headteacher if they could hold a parent meeting about maths, especially the Yr2 stuff?

Our LEA does a Maths roadshow for parents where someone goes round the schools and teaches parents what their children are learning. It was really useful and someone always asks the questions everyone else is too embarassed to ask.

Hi

We had the same problem when our son had some homework about "vertices"- they weren't what we thought they were!
Found a fantastic Usborne book called
Junior Illustrated Maths Dictionary for Key Stage 2
It is superb and covers everything they teach nowadays in an easy and well illustrated way
Here's a link to Amazon:-

www.amazon.co.uk/Junior-Illustrated-Dictionary-Usborne-Dictionaries/dp/0746088795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299248904&sr=1-1

It's got great reviews on there too, highly recommended, and you can also get the follow on book for secondary school stage.
Hope this helps.

That Maths for Mums and Dads book linked to further up is really good
It explains roughly what they learn each year of primary, and explains why current methods are used.
All the new terminology is clearly explained.

My maths is fine, I bought it because I'm nosey and wanted to understand what DS was doing at school as there seems to be loads of new methods and terms, but it's also intended to help parents to have more maths confidence so they can help children with homework, or just save them feeling silly!

My DC's school hold coffee mornings for parents of each class at a time, the focus of which is something relevant to parents, not just to gossip! For example one was held a few weeks ago to explain how addition and subtraction is taught, there were a fair few mums and dads enlightened, and Eureka moments! Really good practice IMO.

LauraSmurf I'm really intrigued by this research project you mention, can you tell me more? By PM if that's easier. I'm hoping to be a primary teacher and maths is my passion - I'm actually just about to start courses with the OU called 'developing statistical/algebraic thinking'.

Oh and whoever mentioned it, WTF is double precision floating point

Just a mini hijack, how does one actually introduce the concept of number bonds to a young child? I feel that's the next step with DD but they don't do that sort of thing at preschool. Any ideas for fun games?

I do it with chocolate buttons and 2 bowls or saucers

1 in one bowl 0 in the other how many altogether
add another 1+1 how many altogether

then eat your maths
there are 32 pairs of numbers for all totals of numbers 1-10 (only 5 pairs need to be known for a total of 10)

The Usborne book is on offer at the moment. Just contact your local organiser. £4.99
Incidently does anyone know whether children start doing number bonds in reception or year 1. My eldest started in reception but have now been told they don't start them until year 1.

Reception

Uses a range of strategies for addition and subtraction,
including some mental recall of number bonds

Thank you mrz

to be fair it is one of the later expectations that some won't achieve until Y1 but it is included in EYFS

Blimey chunking looks complicated, I am not looking forward to that.

I found partioning quite useful. So glad 6YO DS showed me how to do it . I'm shit hot at English tho.