Tips & ideas to help your child with Maths at home

 

Talk about time.
For example, get them to work out what time you need to leave the house to get to school on time.
 

Cooking.
Measure ingredients and set the timer together or get them to work out how much more food will you need if extra people are coming for dinner. Talk about fractions in cooking, for example ask them how many quarter cups make a cup.
 

Talk about the shape and size of objects.
Look online for interesting facts, like tallest and shortest people, or biggest and smallest buildings etc. You could compare the difference between some of these facts.
 

Sharing food
For example. Pizza or cake, ask your child to help you share it equally between the number of people eating.
 

Solve maths problems at home.
For example, ask them how many apples to buy at the shop and why, or how long will it take you to get to Gran's house if you go to the library on the way.  For example 'we have 3 pizzas cut into quarters, if we eat 10 quarters, how many will be left?’
 

Collect information

Create a tally chart, for example to find out the family’s favourite animal or fruit etc. Or on a                    journey ask the child to tally how many of each colour car they see etc.

Make patterns
Using objects such as. colouring pencils, paint or Play-Doh, and build structures with Lego or boxes.
 

Use a calendar
Mark in family birthdays and other events then your child can count how many days or weeks until that event.  You could then calculate the minutes and seconds!  You could even look at which days the moon will be a full circle and mark it on the calendar.
 

Talk about numbers in sport.
How many points does your team need to avoid relegation? How many goals/tries/conversions/points/runs has your team scored this season?
 

Talk about proportions
When you make a cup of tea or squash ask them how much milk or how much water they're using.
 

Look for maths
On TV, newspapers, magazines and talk about it together.
 

Use newspapers.
Talk to your child about percentages in special offers, the probability in the weather reports, the length of TV shows and compare the salaries in the jobs section.
 

Talk about shape, size and quantity.
Use the internet to find interesting size facts like most and least populated cities, highest mountains or deepest valleys etc. and compare these.
 

Timetables
Look at bus, train and school timetables and discuss the information from them.  For example if I am getting the bus to a given location which bus do I need to get?  Create a homework, weekly timetable for home. 
 

Measuring
When buying something new for the house ask your child to measure.  For example. The space you have to fit a new sofa or table.  Take the tape measure to the shop and ask the child to measure it to see if it will fit in the space you have.
Measure the height of everyone in your family, and keep tabs on how people grow.
 

DIY
Involve your child in DIY around the house. For example measuring and estimating for curtains, tiles or woodwork and when re-arranging furniture.

 

 

 

 

Ideas for resources from home that can be used for counting to 100

 

These items are so similar, they are great to use for counting by 2's, 5's and 10's when they are sorted.

 

1.  Paperclips
2.  Pencils
3.  Ping pong balls
4.  Pennies (use with other coins to learn how to count money)
5.  Plastic spoons
6.  Puzzle pieces
7. Lego
8. Dice
9. Marbles
10. Rubber bands
11. Toy cars
12. Building bricks