Advice please re my DD aged 6 struggling with maths.

[Hopeoverexperience]

Have just been to parents evening & teacher confimed what tbh I already knew that DD struggles with maths - its like some sort of "fog" comes down and she can't think .She is a lovely kind & very sensitive girl who panics with new things . We try very hard at home to try & build up her confidence .We have tried to do simple workbooks at home - she quite enjoys doing these if I am there for constant reassurance! Obviously this is not possible at school though.
Can anyone suggest any way to try & help without making a big deal of it - does anyone think that a Nintendo DS Brain Trainer (sorry very ignorant of such things - saw game in Sainsburys said suitable for 3+) might be a useful thing? Thanks for reading.

I think at 6 she is still too youung, even thoguh it says age 3+. it's not possible to change it to different ages, so it might just damage her confidence as it would consistently show her age as 80 at this stage.

I got ds (now 7.5) it and I struggle ot get him to try it - even though he loves his numbers.

Don't know if the Big Brain is more suitable for the younger age groups.

Ask the school if they can suggest any games fro you to play. I know when ds was struggling with hsi reading, thry lent us some games to play to encourage him. I am sure there will be equivalents for numbers.

Altrnatviely, go to ELC and see what wee games they have for numbers.

My 7 year old daughter is exactly the same. She loves literacy but has no confidence with maths. This is mainly because she hates getting things wrong and it is not helped by her being young in the school year. We do Kumon with our daughter, but this is not a short term fix and is very time consuming - a booklet every day of the year. It does not make her a brilliant mathematician but it does help.

Brain Training and Big Brain Academy fr the Wii are probably a bit too old for her as yet.

Big Brain Academy for the Wii is far better, if you have a Wii console. 5yo DD likes that and can succeed at it, whereas with the others she can't reallyy.

Have you tried any of the numbers games on the cbeebies website? Also the KS1 section of the BBC schools website has some suitable stuff that you could do together.

I agree about the bbc schools website. Also www.funbrain.com has some nice maths games. One thing which builds confidence is to make sure her number bonds (and whatever times tables she is supposed to know at this stage) are known really well so she doesn't have to calculate consciously, think and begin to panic. Doing mental maths with her at home (I used to do this with my daughter every morning when plaiting her hair which was a nice short burst) will boost her confidence quickly.

You'll find more maths games here:

www.primarygames.com/math.htm

Thank-you very much everyone for your replies. Will look at BBC & the other sites you recommended this weekend . Will also look into Kumon. All advice much appreciated.

Really good Maths website is Rainforest Maths (.com?)

Covers from recpetion to somewher in secondary level. Really good. DD enoys using it.

I think that the national curriculum has expectations that are beyond what a lot of childen are developmentally ready for. Pigat had a theory that children before the age of seven find it hard to understand abstract ideas.

Maybe your little girl would benefit from using base 10 blocks or cuisenaire rods. She could then physically see what place value or number bonds are.

www.worldwideshoppingmall.co.uk/toys/shelves/numeracy-cuisenaire-rods.asp

ds2 6 yr 2 is having real problems with his maths (we are pretty convinced he has dyscalculia)
We have a fantastic tutor, she is concentrating on
number bonds to 5
counting in 2's
correct number formation (most of his are backwards)
she thinks repetition is the key and that a secure knowledge of number bonds will stand him in good stead. We play the ks1 games on the bbc, he is much more confident doing games on the computer
she's provided lots of visual aids for the counting in 2's, buttons, pieces of lego, cards and a number square and suggests these are at hand all the time to help with simple maths problems in every day life.
HTH's

Thank-you very much for your replies . We have got some cuisenaire rods so I'll dig them out. I think you're right ingles repetition is the way forward - off I go ...!