Could your Year 3 child solve this maths question?

[Whatsyourcakevice]

Would your year 3 (7/8 year old) be able to do this maths question?

There’s a short list of items and prices eg sandwich £1.55, drink £1.30 etc

Then the question is along the lines of Bob goes into a shop with £10. He leaves with £4.25 change. Which two items does he buy?

Sure, it is just basic addition / subtraction.

Yes, it’s hardly rocket science.

It’s the sort of thing my home educated grandchildren are doing. They’re 8.

I could on a good day.

DS is in Year 2 and I’m pretty sure he could do this.

No but he’s disabled and can only count to 10 never mind adding etc.

Yes

So spent 5.75 and has to work out what two items cost that ?

yes easily

I take it your dc is struggling @Whatsyourcakevice

Mine is in year 2, but maths is his strong subject. I think he'd know what it was asking him to do (10-4.25 first) but I don't think he actually knows how decimals work yet to actually do that without talking through each step.

A year 3 teacher here. That’s quite standard but would need a lot of modelling to work out the answer as it’s multi step.

I have twin 8yos.

One could do it in his head faster than I could.

One wouls growl at me and run outside to go on the trampoline.

This type of problem is taught in year 2 in my school

It would take quite a lot explaining for some children to understand the concept of a) paying with a £10 note and b) getting change. That's not how people pay for things these days. It's not the calculations that are the issue, it's the concept and terminology. Even 5 years ago, most children would have been familiar with the concept of cash money, but now I suspect some of them have never experienced a cash transaction. It's a bit abstract inn terms of difficulty, whereas these questions were originally designed to be practical.

@NCTDN thanks
DC can’t do this - can’t work out what the “steps” of the process are

e.g step one £10 minus the change

step two add together different combinations of two items until you find the answer

School have raised no concerns (good private school)

DC is still 7, summer born

Whether it’s cash or counting beans, the actual concept is the same 🤷🏻‍♀️

You'll get genius responses here OP. That type of question is always on The GCSE maths paper so I wouldn't worry too much. With the lack of handling and using cash too.

Try the same process with a different scenario. Eg There's 10 Counters, bob has 2 and Claire has 4, how many are left? That'll tell you whether the money is the problem or the process.

At DS’ school, they cover ‘money’ extensively in Year 1 and 2 and so DS is very familiar with the concept despite the fact that I haven’t paid for anything with cash for years.

Mine are older now but struggled with maths. Too many steps in something like this, it took a long time for things to click. Posting in MN like this can feel like you’re taking a bit of a beating - see “of course my child can do this” type of posts.

On the positive side my children’s inherited crap maths skills haven’t held them back at all!

No.

£10 - the change is a tricky bit as well.

I’m not sure my DC had enough experience of decimals to do that in year 3, but year 5 DD got some very similar questions in her homework a few year ago. She’s good but not exceptional at maths.

It’s possibly harder than people are assuming depending on the exact list of items and their cost. If there are 5 items there are 10 combinations of items. Ao without thinking more carefully about it, you’d have to do a lot of adding to get the right amount.

There will be a shortcut to look out for and that is how they are expected to solve the problem. For example, use estimation to look for combinations of items that are obviously too high or too low. Also look for combinations where the pence obviously does/doesn’t add up to the total. You will likely be left with only one feasible combination.

But OP I wouldn’t worry if he can’t do it.

Yeah - they cover things like this at the end of year 1 and start of year 2 in my kids school.

one of my children could do it in his head easily.
the other would have no idea. she is dyslexic and has number blindness (dycalculia). I’m hoping she be able to do this by GCSE age.

I've been a year 3 teacher in a previous life.

I can tell you that yes, we do cover this in year 3, but most can't actually do this independently as it requires multiple steps and alot of kids really struggle working out differences and applying number bonds. For example, many kids simply aren't secure working out that the cost was £5.25 as they don't know that 25 and 75 go together.

It's a hard question for year 3.