Schofield and sims workbooks

[squashpie]

Hi, I've seen threads on MN before about these workbooks, particularly being used by home schoolers, so I bought the first Mental Maths book for KS1 on the internet. My DS and I are in the habit of doing one double page spread each night as a way of reinforcing the maths he is taught in his classroom.

He really loves the format of this book and so I just looked on the SandS website to see what else they had and got completely overwhelmed with the different "types" of numeracy. There were number books, mental arithmetic, mental maths, problem solving books, key maths books etc. They all seemed to cover similar areas, so is it how the questions are presented that makes the different kind of workbooks useful, or can I leave one sort and just concentrate on others? Any advice gratefully received as I don't know which direction to go in !

Sorry, no advice, just envious that you can get yours to do a double page a night; If I suggest it to mine you would think that I had asked her to remove a kidney without anaesthetic.

He is hugely incentivised by the prospect of certificates (printed from the internet) and if he continues to do them to the end of the school year, I've said we can buy a Wii! a double page spread in fact takes aprox 10 mins or so, and is accompanied by cake / pudding!

I am a home edder and we used Schofield and Sims for KS1. It depends on what you want. The number books are basically + - x / practice - lots of it. The key maths books cover a wider variety of stuff including shapes, weight/capacity and some problem solving. Problem solving speaks for itself - problems to solve on every page!! Mental arithmetic is KS2, I think and we didn't use those.

We also use Bond No Nonsense Maths. They are pretty good and very clear. For every double page you can download a single page from their website. Now they are all KS2 we still use Schofield and Sims Problem Solving books - there are 4 for KS2.

Thanks Tinuviel, Perhaps the best thing would be to just rotate them, numbers book, followed by problem solving etc so that he doesn't get bored with the formats and it practices all those different types of questions and approaches to numeracy. He is on KS1 at the moment (Yr 1). Thanks for the tip about Bonds for KS2. Will look at those.