You know how you can "hide" vegetables in food? Well I need ideas for "hiding" number bonds in play. Ideas?

[gaelicsheep]

DS (6) is really struggling with remembering his number bonds, and I can see these are the key to him progressing with his numeracy at school. It's like he just switches off and he'll come up with the most ridiculous guesses and then gets really stressed out very quickly. I'm seeing little improvement over the course of a year or more so I'm after some ideas for practising this with him without him realising. Workbooks etc. are totally out, as is anything with obvious "sums" like flashcards, maths board games, etc. Something like "Junior Brain Training Maths Edition" for his Nintendo DS without ever mentioning the word Maths? DS is very astute and very good at picking up when he's being hoodwinked.

Any ideas very gratefully received!

save the whale on topmarks is a good online game

Ah yes, DS enjoys that one I think. Educatingarti - those ideas sound great and right up DS's street. I think I've seen that book on Amazon - I remember it seemed a tad expensive but I guess it would be worth it so I'll have another look. Thanks!

How about getting bath crayons and letting him write the "add to ten" sums on himself or the bath tiles at bath time?

For when he knows them but needs to be quicker:

Put some pieces of fabric (place mats, handkerchiefs, cushions?) across the lounge floor. Your ds has to cross the river (lounge) without being eaten by the crocodile by stepping on the "stepping stones". He starts off by saying "crocodile, crocodile can I cross the river?" You (the crocodile) reply "4 and ? is ten" and he has to answer with the correct number within a given time (count to 3?) or hop back onto the previous spot. A correct answer means he can move to the next spot up. Failure to give the right answer or hop back within the time results in being "eaten" by the crocodile! Swap and let him be the crocodile and sometimes give wrong answers that he as to watch out for!

Not to be played just before bedtime - too exciting!

Hi gaelicsheep

1. food count. We did a lot of pick a number of beans/ peas/ carrot spears/ raisins/ candies (any number up to 9). How many more do you need to make 10?

This can be done at snack times and dinner. Absolutely fab for subtraction practice. So starting with 10 and eating up any number between 1 - 9 to discover how many are left.

2. 21/ black jack.
   It's odd to introduce this but it really works. Explain that Ace = 1 and Jack/ Queen/ King = 10 and then play open handed at first so you can help add up cards. Absolutely fabulous for working number bonds to 20 and great for estimating.

3. Snakes and ladders
   Brilliant for counting up 1 - 6 (or with 2 die counting up to 12). Add even more die (4 die to get up to 24 - but play board 2x or more - so forwards and back).

We started with counting up and then we played can you do the maths in your head - so 5 + 6, 11 + 2, 13 + 5, etc....

by the way - you can play this backwards (from 100 - 0) and subtract. Excellent practice for counting back and developing mental maths skills.

4. abacus - on-line version for free here: www.ictgames.com/abacusInteger.html

This is a great way of visualising what units/ tens/ hundreds mean. So when you have 10 units - you actuallly have 1 ten and no units. Great to show what number pairs work together.

5. Woodlands Junior School Maths Zone (great for all maths) has some nice addition games for number bonds to 10 and 20 and subtraction games as well: resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/numberskills.html

6. Cool maths for kids has various addition games but maths line might be a good start (scroll down a bit - midway through games after lessons). You can select a target (say six) and you shoot the number pairs that make 6. Cool Maths 4 kids website here: www.coolmath4kids.com/addition/index.html

7. Big Brainz has a great programme called Timez Attack which has you cast as a little boy or girl ogre and you run through a maze solving multiplication problems (great to keep in mind for later). Anyway they now have a Beta (so in trial) version of addition/ subtraction - which works on the same lines apparently. Info here: www.bigbrainz.com/

Well that's a few ideas.

Good luck.