Odd and Even Numbers

[yomellamoHelly]

Ds is in yr3. We've been revising maths for a few weeks (10 minutes a day) as he's been really struggling at school and I wanted to know how things are.

Know he struggles with telling the difference, but today even with a cribsheet to help him he really struggled to find his way through a number maze by following the even numbers.

Same with working out the next even / odd number after the given number.

Is this a case of lots of repetition in different ways (in which case can you suggest some good sites to go to?) or are there different ways of working on this?

We seem to have hit a bit of a wall.

Can you say even numbers end in "0,2,4,6,8...." (I know "0" is not even but eg 20 is), then use chocolate buttons, raisons, pennies to show the numbers can be split into 2 groups evenly.

Have tried that. Done similar with number grid and number line. Smiles, appears to understand, but cannot apply.

Walk up and down the streets showing the even numbered houses on one side of the road and the odd ones on t'other. Worked a treat with my ds as in they can "see" the difference, the 0,2,4,6,8 etc

Oooo will try that one. Thanks

I play games with the children I teach.

I say I number and they have to do something if it is odd and something if it is even.

So stand up for even, sit down for odd or jumping for even standing still like a statue for odd - basically making them see they are different types of numbers because we do a different action for them.

Do you have a coppers jar? ask him if he want to count the money out but can only do it in odds and evens. then let him go to the shop, he can buy 2 things, one an odd price with the pennies one an even price with the twos.
kids like to be practical.
good luck.

Oooo ... Love all these ideas. Thankyou everyone. Will be trying them all out.

An even number of objects is when each one has a friend, so they can all go inti couples, if you add one more to this, this one will be the gooseberry, so total number will be odd, one more and the two gooseberries can pair off together, thus you get the even odd sequence. If you join two groups both with odd numbers together then they will be two gooseberries and they can pair off. Hence odd plus odd equals even

Silly things always go down well especially if combined with physical actions. So how about in the car you shouting out a number and then he can stick out his tongue for odd numbers or making wiggly antlers with his hands out of his ears for even numbers.

That way he always has a reminder on him of 1=odd and 2=even.

You could then get him to do this at numbers he sees around him so car number plates, road numbers, house numbers etc.

And then add in silly names or noises in case you need to be able to do it without hand actions!

Also remind him that he knows the two times table so he knows the even numbers to link it to that.

And just be very glad that he doesn't have the teacher from the other thread on here currently who has been teaching all sorts of hokum about odd and even numbers and confusing the he'll out of them with wrong info!

Read that thread zipzap. Would confuse me even. Maths not my strongest skill.

Thanks for the continuing suggestions.

Even numbers are so great - 0,2,4,6 and 8.
Odd numbers are so fine - 1,3,5,7 and 9!

This is the rhyme that I teach my class.