Brand new this week is a set of pages on multiplication for our Superbrains! A vital part of understanding the process of multiplication is to know that it can be done in any order. This is also true of addition, but not of subtraction or division.
These pages explain that ‘2 lots of 3’ is the same as ‘3 lots of 2’, therefore 3 x 2 is the same as 2 x 3. It does not matter which way the answer is worked out, it will be 6.
This little piece of knowledge helps children with mental arithmetic and with learning tables. Each table which is learnt gives further knowledge of other tables. Eg If you know 5 x 4 = 20 then you can quickly reverse the number sentence to 4 x 5 = 20.

Go to our Multiplication in any order worksheets

Here we have another in our series on multiplication and tables. This time we are looking at the ten times table. This is often thought of as the easiest table as the digits don’t change, but don’t get caught in the trap of telling your child that you ‘just add a nought’to multiply by ten. Why not? Because a whole lot of unlearning will have to take place later when decimals are introduced (3.4 x 10 is not 3.40!)
Multiplying by ten is also a great introduction into how our number system works, by moving a digit one place to the left its value increases tenfold.

These four pages can be found in our Superbrain section, under multiplication

Go to our Ten Times Table pages

Many people may think this is a thing of the past, but the abacus is a great way to show your child how tens and units work and it is still used extensively in China where their mathematical prowess is renowned.

This is just one of a fantastic range of fun  maths activities which will quickly help your child become confident with number and enjoy their maths. Why not sign up now for completely free use of well over 1000 maths resources?

Go to our Maths Worksheets on Using an Abacus

Practice makes perfect, and this set of multiplication pages gives loads of practice for the 2x, 5x and 10x tables. This is the first time we have introduced the idea of filling in a multiplication grid, multiplying the numbers across and down to fill in the grid.

The first time children come across this they will probably need some assistance, but once a couple have been completed they should be OK.
It is interesting to watch the techniques used to complete these grids. Some children proceed in strict order, others go for the easy ones first. It can be made more of a challenge to set a time limit for the whole page.

Go to our pages on the two, five and ten times tables.

Halves are usually the first fraction which children come across and these four worksheets look at how to colour or divide shapes into half. They have been designed so that it can be seen that a shape can be divided in half in a number of different ways: the important mathematical concept is that each part is of equal size.

When doing these pages you can also introduce the idea of quarters and that two quarters is equal to one half and don’t forget to talk about the different shapes; rectangles, triangles etc.

Questions which begin, ‘How many ways…?’ will heared a lot in school as the children begin to investigate maths and also leads to logical thinking and working in a methodical order. The page on how many ways can a half a rectangle be coloured is an early starter for this type of investigation: you might need to print the page out more than once as there are quite a few ways!

These pages can be found in our Superbrains, Division and Fractions section.

Go to the Recognising Halves worksheets.

Your child will quickly improve their understanding and ability to count down with these fun pages. The astronauts are getting ready for take off. Your child can help them count down from the numbers shown.

This is just one of a fantastic range of fun  maths activities which will quickly help your child become confident with number and enjoy their maths. Most are in sets of 4 and there are also many fun games to supplement them. Why not sign up now for completely free use of well over 1000 maths resources?

Go to our Resources on Counting Down

Once the two times table and ten times table have been learned the next easiest is probably the five times table. Practice first of all with counting up in fives, starting from zero. Then move on to saying the whole table in words. remember to say, ‘One five is five, two fives are ten’ etc rather than just 5, 10, 15 etc. of course multiples of 5 always end in 5 or 0, making this easier to  earn.

Some children learn their fives by halving the ten times table, but you need to be very confident with halving to use this method.

Go to our five times table resources

Children should not start formal education (that’s sitting down to read, write do maths etc) until they are at least six. So says the devastating attack on our schooling by the largest study of Primary Education for 40 years.

The Cambridge Primary Review, led by Professor Robin Alexander recommends putting us in line with the rest of Europe by continuing with the play based learning which now goes on in Nurseries and Reception classes for at least another year.

They argue that many children are introduced to formal reading and writing before they are ready and are ‘turned off’ by a lack of success.

There is certainly a great deal to be said for this approach, as our European counterparts, including Wales, seem to be much more successful with educating their children. Many four and five year olds have not developed sufficiently to be taught to read and write at 5. They immediately start to fail, this leads to disenchantment and a negative attitude to the next 10 years of school life. It really is a waste of time and effort trying to teach children before they have matured sufficiently to understand the concepts involved. However, there are also a large number of children who are ready, who are really keen and excitied about the more formal aspects of learning and can’t wait to get going. Perhaps the real problem our education system has lies with the underlying premise that all children should be progressing at more or less the same rate through more or less the same curriculum.

The survey also calls for the abandonment of the SATs, claiming they are too narrow and not fit for purpose. Unfortunately, the Government do not appear to be listening.

One of the best ways of explaining multiplication is to think of it as repeated addition. So, a multiplication such as 4 x 3 is the same as adding 4 three times (4 + 4 + 4) or 3 lots of 4. Of course, 3 lots of 4 is the same as 4 lots of 3 which implies that multiplication can be done in any order, unlike division or subtraction. Children need to be quite confident in counting up in twos, fives and tens before going onto multiplication of these numbers.
This set of worksheets looks more closely at multiplication as repeated addition, but it would be a really good idea to set out some practical examples of repeated addition, using counters, sweets, lego etc, grouping them into twos or fives and counting each set.

Multiplication as repeated addition

These four maths worksheets are all about learning the vocabulary of position, including on, above and under. Reception teachers will tell you that there are a good number of children who are not at all sure what these terms mean when they come into school, but I am sure that any parent who is looking at this page has already read many of those fantastic children’s story books which encourage the use of maths terms. (eg Billy’s Beetle by Mike Inkpen). There are also a great many games to play with your children which encourage the use of these  terms (hide and seek etc). Of course, there’s nothing better than talking to your children to help them with maths concepts and you could use these worksheets for ideas of things to do practically rather than the worksheets themselves.

These resources can be found in our Further Resources section under Shape and Measures, an area of the site which does not get used as much as the addition, subtraction etc.

Go to our pages on Using the Vocabulary of Position