supporting your child in Key stage 2 maths
So your child is progressing through school and you are unsure how to help with maths?
liz Henning- former senior teacher and head of mathematics
What are your feelings about maths yourself? If you loved it at school or grew to love it when you left, the chances are that you have a fairly positive attitude which your child will pick up on. On the other hand if you detested it at school you will need to be careful not to transmit this to your child.
We are not born loving or hating a subject so it is our experiences that influence us. Children absorb these influences like sponges. Be mindful of your reaction when your child says’ s he has maths homework to do. A positive reaction will create a healthier learning starting point.
Encouraging your child’ s effort is preferable to giving praise for‘ being clever’. We want our children to grow to respect effort over innate ability. This will help to develop a growth mindset rather than a fixed one.
Maths can be incorporated into everyday home life very easily indeed. If you are trying to amuse children on a car journey( and are not driving of course) you could ask them to gauge whether there will be music or talking on the radio before you switch it on. Do their guesses change if you are tuned to Radio 1 or Radio 4?
Car number plates provide easy numerals to play with. For example you could add the digits to see if who can get to 20, 40 or 50 exactly. One child could read the plates of red cars only whilst another blue cars only, to create competition. Who gets closer?
In the house, ensure that you have analogue clocks on view and not always rely on phones or digital clocks to read the time. Refer to the passage of time, for example‘ Gosh I have been ironing for 45 minutes; I started at 4 0’ clock and it is now a quarter to 5’. When approaching bedtime you could ask how long they have left. It is surprising how many teenagers today cannot read the time, do not wear a watch and rely on mobile phones to give digital displays.
Involving your children in baking is a good way to help them to understand weighing and measuring ingredients. Sharing cake or pizza also provides a working knowledge of equal parts and fractions. Letting your children have a bath instead of a shower allows them the opportunity to play in the water and get a sense of capacity as well as floating and sinking. Washing up dishes also helps here too.
When you are in the shops, allow your child the chance to see real money in use, rather than plastic cards. This will help with understanding the cost of items, the value of currency and change. Where possible let them buy items and check the change. Ask questions such as‘ Will I have enough money to buy this?’‘ How many can I buy for £ 1.00?’ How much change will I get?’‘ Can you check the change for me please?’
We live in a world where mobile phones, showers, dishwashers, credit cards and online purchasing all make calculations less obvious. With a little extra thought however, parents and carers can easily help remedy this.
Another easy way you can help your child is to buy a times table chart, available at budget book stores. This will allow the child to start to see patterns. For example the multiples of 5 are 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 etc. and end either in a 5 or a 0. The digits of the 9 times table add up to 9 for ex-ample 9, 27, 36, 45, etc. What other patterns can your child spot?
You might consider buying some Numicon tiles which are a great help in assisting children in number from early number through to fractions and decimals. Starter homework bags are available for just over £ 13 from https:// global. oup. com / education / product / 9780198487067? region = uk( ISBN 978 0 19 848706 7).
Finally there are lots of great websites available with free ideas. You might like‘ Hit the Button’ http:// www. topmarks. co. uk / maths-games / hit-the-button which is great fun!
Another site with great activities is‘ Mathsticks’ http:// mathsticks. com / Enjoy!
Together Magazine 9