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Primary education

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Original poster

Dd's Y1 school report a bit disappointing, I'd like to help her a bit over the summer, any tips?

28 replies

souvenir · 04/07/2009 22:27

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Yurtgirl · 04/07/2009 22:42

Im not a teacher but.....

above, slightly below etc is in relation to what the government think is average for a child of that year group to achieve - hope that makes sense

Dont bother thinking about a tutor - an expensive waste of money!

RE resources you could use at home to help her - I would make (or find online) some cards with numbers on 1, 2, etc

You could use these for sequencing, addition, subtraction, odds, evens - I found some excellent stuff on a website called "Primary plan resources" sorry no time for links atm

HTH

piscesmoon · 04/07/2009 22:50

Don't get a tutor and don't do formal work. Lots of card games, board games, reading recipes and cooking, shopping-practical fun things.
Lots of fun computer number games here

Yurtgirl · 04/07/2009 22:55

make sure everything you do is fun fun fun

And dont do to much or it may become a horrible battle

Do no more than 30 mins a day say

Summer holidays are FUN

ILoveDolly · 04/07/2009 22:56

I wouldn't do a workbook. At her age it might well demoralise and turn her away from maths. Why not use objects around the house to do all kinds of counting and number work.

ie Grouping toys into different boxes, hanging numbers in order on a washing line,
spotting numbers when you are out,
counting everything you come across,
doing basic addition using toys (if there are 2 toys in the bath, how many more should we out in to make 5?)

Get a small wipeclean board for her to practise writing her numbers on again and aagain - you could do one for her to copy. Same goes with simple sums.

Primaryresources and sparklebox.co.uk are also websites (for teachers...) that have some ideas and also nice visual resources to print out for wall posters etc

perhaps to help you decide what areas to cover you could ask her teacher to pinpoint any particular things she needs to work on before next year.

ILoveDolly · 04/07/2009 22:58

also piscesmoon is so right, cooking and shopping are great opportunities for general number work, and understanding measurement.

Original poster
souvenir · 04/07/2009 23:01

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souvenir · 04/07/2009 23:02

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piscesmoon · 05/07/2009 08:01

Help her to focus by playing games or doing jigsaws. I would keep off worksheets-summer holidays are about fun!

AramintaCane · 05/07/2009 09:06

Maths is fun and there is no need for it to be stressful. I find the Montessori aproach is best for little ones as it is very tactile. Make groups of ten beads on threads. You can buy her a pretty bead kit for this which she will enjoy. You can get them in most pound shops. Then using Wool or scooby doos make groups of tens. Then make a string with one bead on it then two then three on it and so on up to ten.

You can use these beads to play number bonds for ten games. These two numbers add up to ten. YOu can sing songs about it sevens best friend is three fives best friend it five and so on.

You can do the same with lego. Once she has grasped that you can move on to place value by showing her that ten is one ten and no units (ones) and so on. Twelve is one ten and two units (ones or beads). Then use them for adding single didgit numbers to numbers with a zero eg 20 + 6 is 26.

You can use floating toys in a paddling pool to do number bonds for ten - shells on a beach, anything.

I find this gives them a firm idea of number you can make 100 squares as well. You can also buy these things on ebay. Good luck maths is great fun if the basics are taught well. Have a fun summer.

Hope this makes sense I am in a hurry

lottysmum · 05/07/2009 10:15

There are loads of fun activities to do with children rather than use work books...

Board games using dice help with mental maths.

I do a little market stall still for my 7 year old and she used her pocket money to buy things...which gets them used to coins and again mental maths.

Treasure hunts are good when you can do word searches, time and adding up within the answers....

I think the key to young maths is enabling the children to check the answers...by reversing the signs.

HappyMummyOfOne · 05/07/2009 18:00

Workbooks can be good dependent upon the child. DS liked to do these and they are good for building confidence. We also have flashcards which are great.

There are many good games available, DK do a nice range of learning games, Orchard toys do a range of maths based games and Learning Resources also have a good choice.

Senta · 05/07/2009 18:03

Hiya,

Have you ever had her hearing checked? My eldest son had glue ear off and on for about three years before I realised what was going on (I hadn't heard of glue ear). Every teacher he had said he didn't listen (and he used to drive me nuts at home as well), but I think he was just so used to not being able to hear that even when he could hear he just didn't listen out of habit. Luckily I work in the school and have made a massive point of telling ALL the teachers about it just in case they ever have him!

mrz · 05/07/2009 18:11

Maths is Fun

KingCanuteIAm · 05/07/2009 18:15

Ok, if she is having trouble translating the fun applications of maths with the formal application of it so work on that. Yes summer is for fun but it is 6 weeks which is an age to a 6yo, she will suffer for spending 10 mins a day doing some maths stuff!

Try the necklace of beads approach, string up sets of beads (1,2,3...) and ask har to arrange the beads into groups of 10 (2 strings to a group) hopefully she will pick, eg, 6 and 4 you congratulate her and ask her to write it out as a sum. THe first time you show her how it is done at the top of the sheet so she can copy down from your example.

She should get the idea from this how to think of a sum as stings of beads, once she has the idea you can give her some sums written down and ask her to make the bead strings herself from the sums. After a while ask her to do the sums but imagine the beads.

Get her taking beads away and writing down how it works (start with 10 take 3 off and put them in a new pile, write out the sum 10 - 3 = 7). As she gets the idea she should find the application easier.

Once she is confident bring out the workbooks and apply the same logic, work through the questions with the strings, start imagining the beads more and more as you go on.

You are not teaching her maths, you are teaching her a different way to see the maths problems she is set. I truely believe that anyone can learn maths effectivly if you can find a way to teach it to them that speaks to them. good luck, hope it goes well

StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 05/07/2009 18:16

I got my DD an Orchard toys game called Magic Cauldron which is maths focused and lots of fun.

KingCanuteIAm · 05/07/2009 18:16

Of course I meant she will not suffer from 10 mins a day!

piscesmoon · 05/07/2009 19:42

If she tries the links she might want to do more than 10 mins a day!

emkana · 05/07/2009 20:29

My dd's enjoy doing the workbook, they are keen on getting the stickers which are usually included.

Niecie · 05/07/2009 20:35

I agree - do lots of games. DS got a list from school at that age.

The only one I can remember ()is think of a number. You start with a number between 1 and 20 and they have to guess by asking questions.

eg is it an odd number? Is it less or more than 10? Is it divisible by 2 or 3 or 4 (obviously some concepts might be difficult for a Yr 1 child but you get the general idea).

You can make it as hard or as easy as you like by adjusting the range, i.e. number between 0 and 10 or 0 and 100. Get her to think of a number too and answer your questions.

We used to play it in the car.

mrz · 05/07/2009 20:57

coolmaths
mathsplayground
mathszone

Original poster
souvenir · 05/07/2009 21:31

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KingCanuteIAm · 05/07/2009 21:56

Can you ask to sit in on a couple of classes, just to observe? Or ask for lesson plans?

I suppose the first port of call (as always) is to talk to the teacher. Ask her what they are doing that is outside of the things she can already do.

piscesmoon · 05/07/2009 22:01

Suggest to the school that next term they have a maths workshop evening for parents where they explain. Lots of schools do. Catch the teacher before the end of term and ask advice.

noideawhereIamgoing · 05/07/2009 22:15

I may be wrong but I thought in Yr 1, children are expect to add & subtract numbers up to 20, my ds is only asked to know number bonds up to 20 - after that they use the 1-100 number grid...is your school very pushy?

My ds struggles with maths too and we are spending 10 mins every day doing lots of different things - card games, board games, ict games, shape challenges, algebra - writing number sentence to represent games we play.

Some things he has hated - not many, but he knows I won't play a game that he doesn't like twice.

coppola · 05/07/2009 22:21

we always had to do worksheets/books in the summer holidays, bloody hated it.

was more about our dp keeping face with the other parents than us.

yr 1 is very little - unless the school is poor, i would leave well alone