Maths: Help with the tricky stuff from the work children are doing: tables, clock time, early division, rounding off

Dear Parent

We are uploading some activities here that your child may find helpful.

They are based on work being done in Maths this week and last,

particularly where children or their parents said they were finding them tricky.

So far the following has come up for mention as posing challenges:

  • Angles
  • Tables
  • Clock time
  • Early division
  • Rounding off

The following are all optional and need only be used, over time if you feel they would help your child. I am posting these today, so you can plan for their possible use next week.

  • I would suggest if next week your child has a problem with any of these areas in maths, they just dip in to the page and watch a video or try an activity.
  • Alternatively you could take a theme at a time and do some revision work on tables, clock time, early division or rounding off using the videos and activities on this page.

Tables

The children have been doing very well at their tables. However it is the trickier tables like 7s and 8s that are posing challenges. Thank goodness for the tricks for learning the pattern of 9.

I wonder if these You Tube videos would help.

Remember, the internet is a portal to the world wide web.

Please supervise your children online.

As an adult helping children to learn their tables, I always found it interesting that 144 number facts can be reduced to 24. Just to note that the following video may be of more interest to grown ups teaching tables than the children. Also this video is more about ‘memory aids’ you can use to learn number facts than maths. But every little helps.

As a teacher and a parent I have often noticed that children get so used to a familiar voice, sometimes the novelty in someone else’s voice is enough to hold their attention longer than it would listening to a person they know well.

I think watching someone their own age rattling off the tables on You Tube is motivating for children. It gives them something to work towards.

This child for example giving tips for nine times tables.


Here is another trick for learning nines:

Pity there are so many tricks for learning the other tables.

So back to our original young teacher with his take

on learning eight times tables.

An awareness and appreciation of patterns in number work

helps children learn and love maths.

Clock Time

There have been two kinds of clock time

in the New Wave Mental Maths exercises

 

e.g. 10.55 is the same as 5 to 11

If you scroll down the page there are two videos from last week

about this kind of sum.

 

We noticed that some children were finding converting

  • hours to minutes
  • and minutes to hours tricky.

 

We will give that talented young man (Akash Vukoti) a rest

so here are two short instructional videos

that show how hours are converted to minutes:

and how minutes are converted to hours:

Early Division

Moneyville is a maths activity that has maths games for 2nd and 3rd approximately.

There is a run in, to the activity in terms of choosing the child choosing the character they would like to be.

Once a child does this and gets into Moneyville they can visit the farm which is the red building at the bottom left hand corner. On the farm there is an activity that practices division. Activities like this teaches children division as sharing:

Click HERE for Moneyville

While you are in Moneyville do call over to the island across the bridge in the top right hand corner. There is an activity there, where your child can budget for a year for a family. I know from school, that children find this enjoyable. They are surprised to see what budgeting for a household involves and it helps them see the value of money.

I would say all the other maths activities on Moneyville are more suited to younger children, though going to the shop to spend any money earned again helps children see the value of money.

To follow here is a very simple short video that explains division:

There are a lot of videos on You Tube explaining basic division.

I have selected another short, simple one

rather than an all singing, all dancing one as most appropriate

at this point for the children.

Rounding Off

Finally there were some ’rounding off’ questions during the week

and I thought it would be a good idea to revise

how to round off to the nearest 10 and 100

Click HERE is a simple online game

that gives children practice rounding off.

It is very basic but it gives the necessary practice.

And HERE. for another football themed one.

Get five correct in-a-row to take penalty shots

 

As we note aspects of Maths children are finding difficult

we will keep adding videos and online activities that may help.

Clock time: quarter to and quarter past

Here are three short You Tube videos that go back over those tricky clock sums in New Wave Mental Maths. Watching just one a day would help children go back over how to do these sums.

 

Just click on ‘Skip Ads’

Revision does help. The repetition in New Wave Mental Maths helps too. Teachers find that children find this particular concept: this renaming of a clock time challenging. It happens every year. However with practice ‘the penny drops’. We call this the ‘Keep throwing mud until it sticks’ approach 😉

Scroll down this page for the videos from earlier this week

and to links for online maths activities in Clock Time and Data.

#Symbaloo webmix for teaching and practising clock time

These online activities will give you clock time practice.  

 

First, click on the four small squares on the bottom right hand corner to make this grid bigger and easier to see.

The four squares are between the magnifying glass and the letter ‘i’

Then click on the blue/green tiles. Each one has a game you can play.

 

These can be done independently. However please keep an eye on your child online.

Remember that the internet is a portal to the world outside and take care.

 

Data: Making graphs with jelly beans

You were all doing well with DATA last week and seemed to be enjoying making bar graphs and pictograms.

As I mentioned in the second video here is an online activity that gives you practice making graphs using jelly beans. I thought you would enjoy that.

Click HERE to play it. Drag each jelly bean to the rectangle where there is the same colour.

 

SHAWSHANK61 / Pixabay