Home maths activities

[yorkshirebound]

Was just thinking that we do a huge amount to support dcs literacy - reading, flash cards, word hunts, spellings etc.; but get much less push from school or suggestions on maths activities. Plus the vast majority of questions here seem to focus on reading levels etc.

Dd and I (reception) do counting in 2s, 5s, 10s when we are in the car together, and I sometimes set her little problems as we are walking somewhere (eg what's 3+7, great, 10, so what's 23+7, 43+7 etc.) but feel like we could probably be having more fun with it and be a bit more creative - I'd love her to have the same anticipation for a fun new maths game as she does for a new book to read. Any suggestions much appreciated!

print out a 100 square and play games with that.
String 10 beads and find complements to 10. I do this using a wand and I magic away beads( hiding them under my hand) and the dc's have to work out what has been taken away.
Find different ways of making 10 ( hugely important to really nail this one)
make a right angle and get her to hunt for them round the house
use food to start fraction work
use sweets to work out halving and sharing

cooking - measuring and reading scales

building 3d shapes using nets

races - use a stopwatch to time them

shape tiles - tangrams

farm animals - sorting into groups

board games - snakes and ladders etc, using dice

connect 4, snakes and ladders, etc
also, a pack of playing cards: take out the picture cards and the 10s and play pairs - but a pair is a number bond to 10
Or snap as in number bond to 10.

Hi yorkshirebound:

When she's ready for addition over 10 - Blackjack or 21 is great - because it really helps build addition skills beyond 10 to 20. Play it open hand with everyone's cards up and make a real point of having your DD do as much adding up as she can.

for subtraction play snakes and ladders backwards.

If counting by ones is getting a bit old - then play snakes and ladders with 2 or more dice. Also helps build counting up skills. At the point she's ready for mental addition (so knowing 5 + 4 is nine, without counting up) - then stop allowing her to count up the total shown on the dice & make her announce the total.

Adding or Subtracting SNAP: This is totally up to you in terms of how evil you want to be. It may be that you want to work on number bonds (I certainly made the mistake that it was just all numbers equaling 10 - it really is useful to work through possibilities for all numbers >3). So say you want to work on 9. Select out A-8 in all four suits - or if you want to include 0 (make jokers 0 and include 9s). Then shuffle the cards, divide them in half and turn them face down. One pile is the 'pick' pile - for when you can't make 9 (or whatever number) and the other is the 'flip' pile which gives you the number to add to to make 9 (or whatever). Deal each player 10 cards. Flip first card. Say it's 7. So look in your hand - if you have a 2 slam it down and scream 9. You can keep the cards. Flip next card and find card in your hand to make 9. First player to empty hand wins.

You can play this as speed snap and just shout out answers - but can get very rowdy with more than 1 or 2 children.

Oxford Owl has some early maths games on-line for free as well here: www.oxfordowl.co.uk/maths/fun-activities/5-7/

HTH

Cooking for weighs and measures
Telling the time
"sharing" out items between x number of people
Board games
Yahtzee and monopoly are good but maybe a bit advanced at the moment
role playing shops (all the paying and giving change)

Thank you everyone these are brilliant. I love your snap game, pastsellbydate, that will really appeal to dd's competitive spirit!

Great points re not just number bonds to 10, and also re stopping allowing her to count the dots etc., she is quite able to just a none it but is always worried about being wrong, would be good to push her to just give it a go!

Will give some of these a go and report back!

BBC bitesize is good too

Top trumps are cheap and fab, (I haven't mentioned it for at least 2 months!!) in something she likes eg puppies, Moshi Monsters, Ice Age.

Get her to help when you are at the supermarket, eg put 4 apples in the bag, weigh out 100g of whatever, ask how much x costs and what would it be if you bought two of them etc.

Google for KS1 Maths Games Bare Necessities Wiltshire - a nice set of games put together by the Wiltshire primary Maths team which can be played easily at home. Also a KS2 version.