mathsphere -does anyone use it as I think DC has been given the wrong homework!

[sausagesandwich34]

Dd has come home with 2 sides of fractions to do

one is 4022 fraction notation and equivalent fractions

the other is 5023 fraction notation and equivalent fractions

the easier side has fractions up to 8s and they have to say if it's more or less than a half

the other side has questions such a 'one__ is one half of a fifth'

massive jump in difficulty, tears and more tears doing it but Dd insists they had to do both sides

please tell me they aren't the same level, it's really knocked her confidence

As far as I remember, the 4 at the beginning represents objectives from year 4, and the 5 at the beginning of the second side represents objectives from year 5. This would mean that the two sheets aren't the same level.

In terms of the questions on the second page, would it help if she tried to draw the problem. For example, sketching a circle or rectangle and dividing it into fifths, then dividing the fifths in half. This might help her to visualise what is going on.

Having said that, homework should be consolidating what has already been covered in class and if she's finding it this difficult and upsetting, then it may be that it isn't the right level for her.

that's how we did it, through tears as they have moved on from drawing pies & sharing out and the teacher likes them to use the same method and she thinks she is going to get in trouble if she does it differently!

that said she didn't have a clue how else to do it

she's ok at maths but really struggles with her confidence in the subject so this has prompted -see I told you I was rubbish at maths!

I might be able to help here as I was the MD of Mathsphere and wrote the worksheets you are referring to (yes, really!).

These two sheets are all about equivalent fractions which form the basis of just about all fraction work and are not just a topic in themselves. You do not say which year your DD is in, but if she is in year 5 then the 4022 sheets should be regarded as revision. If she is in year 4, then sheets 5023 may well be too difficult.

In 4022 one of the concepts they have to grasp is that 2/10 is equivalent to 1/5 (Equivalent means having the same value, but looking different, just as 1/2 is equivalent to 2/4). In 5023 they are really asking this the other way round. The child is supposed to recognise that 2/10 is equivalent to 1/5 and therefore one half of it must be 1/10.

If she does not understand this easily then she does not have the concept of equivalent fractions under her belt. It may be that the teacher does not understand the importance of a good grasp of equivalent fractions and is therefore not sure how to help the children.

While on the subject, it is very important to have a good grasp of times tables with this work (as with much other work in maths).

Yesterday, I gave the address of a great website dealing with times tables that is well proven in schools and does not involve chanting or singing tables. About a hundred people downloaded the material overnight, but this morning Mumsnet has deleted all reference to it as I guess they think it is spam, but the website is free to use and if everyone in the country used it with their children the level of maths in this country would improve dramatically with almost immediate effect. There is no need to pay Carol Vordeman to help your children

I have tried to contact Mumsnet about this before, but they just ignore me and never reply to my emails, letters or phone calls.

Sorry I can't help you further with this.

Alan, can you talk a bit more about this website in general terms, giving parents enough of a clue what it might be called to figure its location out for themselves? That way mumsnet won't think it's spam and we can all judge for ourselves. (ie don't write or link to the web address just talk a bit about the site. And how it got the name that it has got.)

Hi learnandsay. Yes, sometimes gooooggling something is a good idea and you might like to try '4 step programme to times tables'. If you are lucky you will find it contains 4U in the title. Rather a shame all this as I know this can really benefit youngsters, but what can one do? It would be a good idea if I do get blocked (as I did once before for trying to be helpful) if longer standing members could give it a bit of publicity too.

Thanks very much for the idea.

Hi Alan, do you call 15x6 a times table? My times tables went up to 12x12. I'd work 15x6 out as 3x30. But I wouldn't call that a times table either. Isn't there just some familiarity with mental arithmetic which is not exactly the same as times tables although it might look similar. (I suppose it depends how high people's tables went up to. But surely there has to be some kind of practical or sensible limit.)

Hi learnandsay. Of course you are right - there has to be some practical limit and for me that is up to 10 x 10, even though, in theory, I guess they go on for ever. Some people like to go to 12 x 12, but that does not really have much practical use any more, but I would never say don't teach your children if they can manage it without too much trouble. When I was young we had twelve pennies in a shilling and twelve inches in a foot, but thankfully most of that has gone west now.*

I think what is more important and more useful is to learn the square numbers up to 20 x 20 because of Pythagoras' Theorem. If they can recognise that 169 is 13 x 13, for instance, they can often save precious seconds in an examination.

*With respect to this (and I have said this before many times), it is very important that we go metric as quickly as possible and that means changing the road signs too!

In the thirty years I have been advocating this, I have heard every counter argument from 'Imperial gives our children a good idea about number bases' (rubbish!) to 'imperial units fit our body parts better' (Nonsense - how many people do you know with a foot that's a foot?) to 'What about our sacred pint?' (What's sacred about a pint?) to 'In the USA they still use Whitworth threads' (Silly them!) to... the list goes on and on, but none of them are as important as our children's mathematics which is being severely hampered by the lack of change. Did you realise, for instance, that it is almost impossible to measure a kilometre in this country, even though our OS maps have been metric for decades and are based of one kilometre squares (they changed just after I left school).

Some people say the change should happen gradually and we should let it take its course naturally, but I have some GCE papers at home with some metric questions on them dated 1957. I was ten years old then. How gradual does it need to be?

P.S. I often think I should write a book for parents about what they need to know to help their children with maths. I am in the fortunate position of having taught maths in both primary and secondary schools and while this is not unique, it is certainly unusual. I would never claim to know everything, of course, and I don't know much about special needs, but this experience does enable you to see what is important in the subject for main stream children and what needs to be firmly established in the primary school to make secondary school mathematics easier to follow.

There are probably lots of nice times table games out there. I can't think of any off the top of my head. I love your idea that times tables are commutative and that this fact should be taken full advantage of. I think some people here on mumsnet have been advocating that for a while. I was a child who liked chanting times tables! (I'm guessing that you're not suggesting that if children like it that they shouldn't do it.) But I get the impression that you think that children should learn how the tables actually work rather than just to sing them.

Could I make one more point to anyone else who is reading all this stuff. I have read many comments on Mumsnet that basically add up to the fact that their child is 'no good' at mathematics.

I firmly believe (and I think research supports this) that there is one small part of the brain that deals with elements of mathematics such as calculation. For instance I have a foster daughter who is mentally handicapped and is now 35 years old. Despite many, many years of maths lessons, she still cannot add ten to a small number such as eight. That part of her brain is definitely not functioning, even though she is very good at social chit chat, for example.

Now, we have to be careful here. Because some youngsters are not very quick at calculation, it doesn't mean they are no good at mathematics. What about shape, for instance. If your child is poor at calculation AND poor at naming shapes and discussing some of their properties, unless they attend a special school or have been diagnosed with a very serious educational problem, it would indicate to me that they have not been taught well. It is very unusual to find a child who has been taught well who has problems with both calculation and shape. And what about statistics (collecting data), drawing graphs, weighing and measuring, reflections, position and direction etc?

So, next time you feel the need to say your children are no good at maths, think carefully before you jump to conclusions.

I think many people use the term mathematics to refer to mental arithmetic and equations. And if they aren't or don't feel good at either of those then they tend to stear clear of all types of mathematics.

Hi again
Re your latest comment, as you will see from the video on the not-to-spoken-of website, the problem with chanting is that generally children have to run through all the table to get to the fact they need. They should be able to state the one they are after without going through all this stuff and we have proved in controlled tests that the 4 Step Programme is definitely better.

However, I should say that number sequences provide all sorts of opportunities for mathematical work and if you want to keep me here at my computer all night, I could give you some ideas (Crickey! When am I going to update my Facebook page?!!) But this is not much to do with times tables.

Hope this helps.

What a shame people tend to steer clear of all mathematics because one part is proving a little difficult. This is what I mean about us having such a bad attitude to mathematics in this country as I have said somewhere else. What about the idea of a challenge? Has that gone completely out of the window?

Would you give up reading altogether because you found Shakespeare's Hamlet a bit difficult? This only seems to happen in maths.

Just noticed what you said about advocating that children should not chant tables. Well, yes, I would say that. It's such a waste of time because they probably already know seven or eight of the ten number facts in a table, so 70% of the time they are going over and over stuff they already know. Focussing on the ones they don't know is a much more efficient use of time. The other problem is that teachers and parents often think 70% or 80% is a good level of achievement and because they don't focus on the other 20 or so percent, their children are getting stuck with the same number facts in all their multiplication, division and fraction work over and over again (and later, algebra, percentages etc).

Time for tea! Thanks for your stimulating comments and questions. I'll be back later.

Yes, I know that's your view. But that wasn't really what I was getting at. A child, like the one that I was, might simply enjoy chanting the tables. I see no reason why he or she can't chant and focus on the ones that he or she can't do very well. The reason that I ask is because I wasn't a great fan of filling out worksheets. I found it a chore. (Obviously chanting tables is also a chore but it was one that I liked.) That's why I ask about games. Because if I was going to have to be made to fill out the contents of a repetitive grid I'd far rather do it in the process of playing a game than filling in holes in a worksheet.

I think in that sense a bit more of pupils do whatever you fancy, but don't forget to practice the bits that you're not good at would be more attractive rather than a this is the way to do it and your way is wrong. The worksheet, and commutative focus may be much much more efficient but is it more pleasurable for certain types of children? Efficiency has its uses but it's not all there is.

Hi. Yes, you are right in the sense if it works for individual children doing it in their own time, that's fine, I guess, and there will always be individual circumstances to consider. I'm sorry if I seemed dictatorial, that wasn't my intention.

However, I have stood outside many classrooms over the years, listening to children chant or sing their tables and thinking to myself, 'what a waste of time that is' for the reasons I have explained. It's not very often you see children spending 75% of the time on an educational activity going over and over the material they are already familiar with. This seems acceptable with tables, but wouldn't be if all they ever did in maths was long multiplications, for example. Any teacher doing that would soon get a rap over the knuckles.

I take your point about not liking worksheets and I used to make this more interesting by adding a bit of energy to the proceedings. The idea was that once the children knew all the tables they would have to try to improve on their time each time we completed one of the squares and this really spiced things up. I used to try to beat my time too and they loved that. I'm a great believer in teachers/parents joining in wherever possible.

By the way, our little ruse seems to be working. In the last couple of hours about twenty people have looked at the site and ten have downloaded the manuals. Well done!

I do agree with your point about efficiency to some extent. And I see the point you are passionate about which is the wastefulness and inefficiency of chanting. But how were the children supposed to learn most of the tables that you want them to have absorbed before your concentration on the ones that they aren't so good at kicks in? I know much of what they've already learned is repeated across the tables themselves. But knowing that something is true and being able to exploit it at the correct moment isn't always the same. For an experienced table manipulator it's easy to say 7x2 is the same as 2x7 and 4x7 is the same as 14x2 or 7x2x2 but for someone just learning tables this is an abstraction. Manipulating data that you know well and manipulating data that you are learning isn't the same task. I think there is a difference between showing children how repetitive the table data is is one thing. But it's not the same as having learners use it. By all means exploit it later on when the tables are well learned. But I think that brings us back to chanting, (maybe just much less chanting.)

Hi again. Sorry to be late getting back to you, my wife's been dragging me hither and thither.

I don't think we are going to agree on this one as you obviously love chanting (and why shouldn't you if you wish?), but the way to teach tables initially is to make the appropriate number sequences: 5, 10, 15 ... for the five times tables for instance and then ask questions such as 'What is four lots of 5?' Point to, say, 35 and ask, 'How many fives is that?' Writing a number sequence and analysing it isn't chanting.

One thing I hope comes over in the Parent Manual is that children are pretty quick to learn some of the easier tables such as the 1x, 2x, 5x and 10x. Children like to count in twos, fives and tens, for instance, and this can be encouraged in games such as hide and seek - Count to 100 in fives, for example. Then you are left with surprisingly few to learn.

Another thing about chanting in class is that the children who do not know the tables well get carried along by the children who do know them well. Okay, you might say, test the children individually. But that can take all day if you have to test the whole class. I know you can take shortcuts with that, but if you are going to do that, you might as well use the four step programme and get straight to the nitty gritty.

By the way, I've been thinking today, the oldest children I ever taught are now 61! I was 22 when I started teaching and they were 18, a four year gap naturally. I am now sixty five and a half, so they must be sixty one. Wow!