Y1 math homework - easy, difficult or just right on level?

[Kawasaki]

DD is currently at state school. Last week DD was given these questions for her math homework and it took her about 40 minutes to finish. She answered them correctly but I can notice that these questions are a bit challenging to her.

Is this easy, difficult or it is right level for Y1?
What should I do to improve her math?
Any advice from teachers is highly appreciated.

"These things are on sale in a shop:
Pencil - 10p
Pen -40p
Ruler 15p
Rubber 13p
Pencil case - 25p
Sharpener - 9p
Ice cream 16p

Can you answer these questions?

1. Sally buys the sharpener and the rubber. How much does she spend?

2.Erica has 50p. How much change does she get if she buys the pen? ...

1. Hardeep spends 30p. What 2 items does she buy?
2. Rose buys pen and a ruler, She pays with £1. How much change does she get?

... 10. What three things can you buy with 50p?

Many thanks

It's quite similar to my year 1 DD's maths homework. She would need a bit of guidance about setting out the sums required but I think she would be able to do them with a bit of adult input. Having said that I don't think she would usually have as many as 10 questions.

First - congrats that your daughter persevered and completed it all!

If it took your her 40min - you should have a chat with her teacher. It is unlikely that the teacher intended the work to take that long. I have a Y2 DD at a private school and in Y1 it would also have taken most of her classmates a long while to figure it out. At our school these questions would be given as extension work for an advanced Y1 student.

To me, that looks complicated for Y1. My Y1s wouldn't be able to do that without some help - especially just reading the words in the questions. About half of my class would be able to do the straightforward addition questions. Some of them would be able to work out which items could be bought with a certain amount. I'm not sure any but the absolute brightest would manage the one about change.

Did she have any resources to help her (number line, hundred square etc)? It's very hard at Y1 to go from concrete to abstract, and these questions are all very abstract.

I don,t think my Y1 would be able to do these. I thought maths reasoning questions came later.

My dd yr1 state school, has questions on 3,2,5,10 x tables, number bonds to 20, tens and units, but all quite simple.

Well done for your dd perseverance!

Ooh just thought, do you think they are giving her extension work? It looks like it to me.

My Y1 DD wouldn't be able to do that without help, except maybe the first question. It seems a lot of homework for Y1!

My Y1 did this last year - and managed OK. She had some paper money they'd made at school to help her though (which was hopeless - I let her empty her money box to work it out with real cash :o )

Re improving maths, we were told to work on:
money
time (digital and analogue, to the quarter hour)
number bonds to 10 and 20
2, 10, 5 times tables (in that order) - known as "counting in..." though.

No idea as I don't have a year 1. But I can't do number 5! Am I missing something?!

Vijac, if you look at the prices, the only two numbers which add up to 30 are 15+15, so she bought two rulers.

But there is only one15p -the ruler, do you mean that she bought two rulers? I was looking for two different items....hmmm can't see the question now, but guessing I misread it. Back to kindergarten!

Yes, she was in a shop, so it's likely they had more than one of everything for sale.

That looks like Y2 homework (or top set Y1, I suppose) to me. My Y1 DD wouldn't be able to do it (although she might by the end of the year) but she's only middling at maths.

I think I would have loved to see this in Summer not Spring term. I found maths homework useless for DD in Y1, far too easy.

She now gets this in a year 2

My Y1 DD had 'can you share 24 cakes between two people?how many will they have each?' That was it this week!

Thanks all for your comments. DD is a free reader and her math is not as good as reading but she told me she is at the same table color for literacy and numeracy.

Taking your comments in to account, I think DD's teacher wants to stretch her again with math practice.

Last week she also came home with her teacher comment in the reading book record: "progressing well but need to work on comprehension and inference". DD is reading Dick King Smith series at the moment.

Thanks

I would say it would be top group/extension. According to DD1 in Yr1 there are children who are still working just with single digits added together or a single digit added to a double digit which sounds quite reasonable to me at that age.

I think whilst the actual sums are straightforward for a child good with maths in Yr1, the 'problem' aspect of it will be pretty new to them and many children struggle to pull out the right bits of information (I always did) and expecting them to work out it would be 2 rulers would throw a lot of children. She did well to persevere and do it all.

DD1 likes Dick King Smith too, which ones is your daughter reading? DD1 has enjoyed the Lollipop ones recently, not yet started on Sophie, she has done lots of animal ones though. Dick King Smith books are quite complex though IMO. I mean the stories can seem very simple but he uses more old fashioned grammar than many books now and I noticed DD1's comprehension when reading them was often a bit more stretched in a sense, she would ask more questions or reread bits because she didn't think it made sense at first.

Kawasaki

very interesting and illuminating question

At our school where maths curriculum is to get children to know times tables to x10 by Y6 and division (including inverse multiplication facts - i.e. 36 divided by 6 = 6) is not taught - this homework as described would be Y3 level. (Although new curriculum from Sept 2014 will force changes)

DD2s class started implementing changes to maths curriculum (for which read raising standards/ expectations) and this was the kind of homework she had in Y2.

I know for Y1 DD2 had this kind of problem with pictures of coins included - so there would be a question - How much would it cost to buy a pencil (10p) and a pen (40p) - and the child was required to cut out coins from a coin sheet (with a lot of choices) and paste them under the problem and then work it out. But this very much was working 2, 5 and 10 numbers and didn't include numbers like 19.

I agree with others that have posted - this sounds like extension work and from my perspective seems very high caliber work for a 5/6 year old. I'm definitely not surprised this took more than the usual 20/30 minutes to do - but think 40 minutes is impressive, especially if she has done this all on her own.

One thing I will say is although I get this individualized, differentiated teaching approach and can see the advantages in fostering interest/ talent of particularly bright children - it is somewhat frustrating as a parent to not have a clear understanding of what should be taught when. This is an area where teachers/ OFSTED/ School SMT could do better to communicate what expectations are so parents are more able to support learning. Of course the fact that (at our school at least) no maths work comes home week to week and it is very difficult to get a sense of what your child is doing, especially when quite young - Year R/ 1 - is frustrating.

But I also think there can be a further problem. In our case homework rarely relates to what is being done in class that week - e.g. DD1 Y6 did algebra related term work all last week in class (and loved it - couldn't wait to see her homework) but her homework was identifying place values & ordering numbers - she was a bit disappointed as she prefers challenging work - likes algebra type problems (I think of a number, take away 6 and multiply by 7 and my answer is 35 - what was the number I was thinking of). The place value homework took 5 minutes maybe involved 10 questions - and was a photocopy of a workbook. Clearly wasn't Level 5/6 work and frankly was ludicrously easy.

We can do our own thing at home of course - but it does leave parents casting about in the dark and frankly resenting it.

@ pasbeaucoupdegendarme: No, DD did not use any resource to help, she picked up the price of the item needed in the question and added them together.

@ nonicknameseemsavailable: She finished Shopie between Dec. and Jan. and 2 weeks ago she read Martin's Mice. Last week she was given "How green was my mouse". Agreed with you that his books are quite complex as when I asked her whether she could predict what Charlie was going to say to Merry, she could not answer... a bit young for adult's love life :0

I don't know How Green Was My Mouse. We have had Hodgeheg, Happy Mouseday, Clever Lollipop and Lady Lollipop, The Guard Dog and the Sophie ones on the bookcase waiting for her but she is on a My Naughty Little Puppy by Holly Webb reading spree at the moment!

She has also really enjoyed a Jill Tomlinson box set she was given for Christmas, The Owl who was afraid of the dark, the Kitten who wanted to go home, the Hen who wouldn't give up and a few others. Might be worth a look.

In the maths lesson at school yesterday (I'm a TA in a YR/Y1 class) the \y1 children were adding up the costs of small items - none of the prices were more than 10p and they had to pick two items and add up the cost. WHhat you describe seems a bit harder, more like what Y2 would be doing.