What sort of maths can your 6yr old (Yr1) child do????

[fannyannie]

I'm just wondering really as DS1 still seems to be really struggling with things such as

5+3, 7+2, 5-1, 10-5 etc etc.

What sort of maths can your Yr1 child do - or not do????

My 5 and 11 months old son did them all. The first 2 using his fingers, said 5-1 was easy and did 10-5 when I held up my hands to get his attention.

my just 5 year old in reception can do all those.

my 5.5 year old isn't very good at maths yet!

5+3 - said 9, first, then 8
7+2 - 9 straight off
5-1 - 4, no problems
10-5 - knew straight away

He's year 1, but 5.8.

DS did them in his head. He is Y1 but nearly 6.5 - until recently he would have only been able to do them using his fingers.

My Ds1 is 6 (but in year 2), he is not a natural at maths, much more comfortable with reading and language based activities.

He would have been doing similar things in Yr1 and needed LOTS of practise of number bonds. We still have to go back over then now sometimes as a reminder.

I made DD finger puppets to help her remember her number bonds to 10 (which is what he needs to practice).
Cut the corners off junk mail envelopes & draw a face on and write the numbers 0-10 on them, plus an extra 5. Then you can put one on your finger & get DS to find the 'partner' - DD used to make them kiss - your DS may prefer them to have a wrestling match!

does he use his fingers .. can you teach him to use his fingers ..

or you can do it with chocolate drops and / or raisins etc

its just practice till he gets the concept tbh

I don't think comparing to other kids will do you any good though

Agree with Twiglett - there is such a wide range of ability in my DS class in every subject - my DS is better at maths type subjects because he enjoys that type of thing. Its just practice, practice, practice.

Can you draw a number line for him at home?

For the sum you point to the first number on the line, so 5 in the first sum, and then get him to count on 3, then his finger should land on the 8.

Alternatively, another stategy which helps and is good for bigger sums, is to put the biggest number of the sum in his head, so 5 in his head, put up 3 fingers and then count on from the number in his head. So he would point at each finger and then count 6, 7, 8.

A more basic trick is to put dots underneath each part of the sum, so 5 dots under the 5 and 3 dots under the 3, and get him to count the dots together to make 8.

For take-away you can do all of the above but count backwards instead. For the dot method, put 10 dots under the 10 and then cross through 5 of them to leave 5 behind.

You can do this well with pennies/sweets/crayons anything really - get him to draw 5 crayons and then three crayons then add them together to make 8 crayons, for example.

These are very basic sums for y1 ime, so I would say that he definitely has not yet grasped the concept between counting and values yet.

Practice, practice and more practice is the answer I think

My year 1 6.2 years dd did them with a pause to think and used her fingers.

DS2 can do these. However,as Twig said, it isn't really helpful to compare as children develop at such different rates.

They concentrate on these sorts of sums in Y1 so try not to worry too much; your son will be getting lots of practice. DS1 (who is 8) struggled with exactly this sort of simple arithmetic in Y1, but he is now described as "a bright and able mathematician" in Y4.

Remember too that arithmetic is only one part of maths. It just happens to be the part they concentrate on for the early years.

I have twin boys in year 1. DT1 is good at maths and would be able to do these without counters. DT2 would only be able to do these with counters or fingers, although would be able to do 5-1 ok most of the time. He seems to be good on a practical level. For example if I say " Do you want 5 sweets, he says yes, I give him 1 and he will say I want 4 more. Whereas when i write it out for him he doesnt want to know and would sometimes do 5+1 instead. Like your DS he seems ok with reading . My Dt's are the youngest in their year and should only be in reception as they were a month premature so I try (unsuccessfully ) not to worry. There was a link recently to the standards site and another site which has whats expected at the end of year 1. Adding and subtracting 2 numbers under 10 is on the list of whats expected . Someone said that the sums you listed were very basic for yr1 but as regards adding and subtracting that seems to be whats required. I'm sure learning the different ways to do it is also important as are other areas of Maths

My ds, who is 5 & in reception though one of the older ones, September born)can do those easily in his head - I just tested him. I think he is very good at numbers though. On the other hand he cannot use a scooter or ride a bike or swim or do lots of other things like that. They are all different. I think practise really helps with this sort of thing. I am absolutely terrible at maths, btw, so don't know where ds gets it from!

Dd (5 in May) is doing HTU. But she is Home ed and her daddy is a mathematician. Not much help sorry. Have you tried placing the maths in context, so counting with sweets, money etc?

DS maths homework this weekend involved finding household objects that were light, heavy or in between, drawing them and then estimated their mass in cubes

scared the f' out of me

they don't half seem to use terminology early nowadays .. which is a good thing I suppose because it doesn't seem like a foreign langugae

in his reading book he was pointing out 'that's the dialogue mummy'

What's HTU?

Oh gawd Twiglett, that sort of thing terrifies me too!

Hundreds tens and units.

the funny thing is though if we try to teach our kids the way we learned at school we risk getting it all wrong .. because nowadays the focus appears to be on teaching children that there are many routes to the same answer and they can use any of them

number bonds, number lines, fingers, beads

but if you add 2 digit numbers to 2 digit numbers they don't appear to carry the 10 anymore .. they do it a whole new way

eg

24 +
17
--- =
11 +
30
_ =
41

whereas I'd put a little tiny 1 up on the line under the tens column

oh no .. verrry verrry wrong

oh and another reason the 'estimate mass in cubes' flummoxed me was there was no quantification .. it was just a cube .. not a cubic centimetre, cubic metre .. just a cube

so my fridge could be 1 cube

still we did it all so it was relative

oh my ds can count in hundreds and thousands and millions..is that what you mean? I am not a natural maths teacher, that's for sure, but he hasn't learned anything at school yet, tbh.

When I say I'm not a natural maths teacher....I don't understand any of Twiglett's post

come for coffee .. I'll show you