Glove puppets are really popular in reception classes as a way of engaging children’s attention and there are many maths activities that they can be used for.This activity involves the glove puppet making mistakes in counting and the children have to correct the mistakes. Children are more than happy to go along with this and it makes counting, addition and subtraction much more fun.

This, and other fun, practical ideas can be found in our Further Resources: practical ideas section.

Glove puppets for counting

Success in maths is often the result of having the ability to see the patterns in numbers and use these patterns to work out further answers. These four maths worksheets look specifically at the patterns created when adding a single digit to a 2-digit number.

Addition patterns

Plenty of work is done in schools on pairs of numbers that make 10, but less is done for pairs that make 20. If children know off by heart pairs that make 10 then they should be able to quickly calculate what is needed to make 20.

A number line is included on the first page but the next three pages do not have any help. The last page is a more open ended investigation and it is always interesting to see how children tackle this type of question. Some will work haphazardly, often repeating themselves whilst others will work in a well organised, systemmatic way (eg 20 + 0 = 20, 19 + 1 = 20, 18 + 2 = 20 etc.) This could lead to an interesting discussion as to whether 13 + 7 is the same as 7 + 13 etc.

Go to our resources on pairs of numbers that make 20

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This is the second in our series of money worksheets for Year 2. It concentrates on giving change from £1 when spending multiples of 5p.

In the ‘old days’ shopkeepers counted out your change rather than just plonking it in your hand with a receipt. So, for example, if you spent 35p they would say ‘and 5p makes 40, 10 makes 50 and 50 makes a pound’. This is probably still the best way of working these out mentally and if you have access to coins then it would be an excellent idea to use them when working on these pages.

Change from £1 (2)

This is the latest in our series of worksheets on counting money. These four pages look at counting 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p coins and making amounts using a combination of them. Again, when adding mixed coins it is usually best to suggest starting with the largest coins.

For many of the answers there will be several possible combinations and this work could lead to a number of interesting investigations eg how many different ways can you have 10p using any combination of the coins.

Go to our counting money worksheets

We usually think of counting on as being counting in ones, but the Primary Framework expects children to be able to count on in larger steps. These four worksheets concentrate on counting on 3, 4, 5 or 6 from a single digit.

Your children will probably be confident enough to give some of the answers without counting on. This means that they are beginning to learn the answers to ‘number bonds’ such as 5 + 3 is 8. These pages will give you a good insight into what they actually know and what they still need to learn.

The Year 2 section is still developing, but now provides quite a large number of high quality resources for 6 and 7 years old children.

Go to our resource on: Counting On 3, 4, 5 or 6

Here we have a maths investigation on addition, suitable for year 2. There are four numbers shown. The task is to choose any three numbers and add them up. Each number can be used up to 3 times, but the total sum must not include more than 3 numbers. So the sum could be 2 + 2 + 2, or 2 + 4 + 4 etc.

How many different ways are there of doing this and how many different answers are there?

Usually children begin in a haphazard way, but it is important that they try to develop logical systems to make sure that all possibilities have been covered.

Addition: How many sums?

Recognising and continuing number patterns is the earliest stage of algebra, but the name isn’t used until much later, usually at High School. The easier patterns are counting on in ones and twos, but these pages also include counting on and back in threes, fives and tens. If children have had plenty of practice counting out loud they should not have any problems recognising the patterns and completing them.

It is a good idea to ask your child what the pattern, or sequence, is eg ‘going up in threes’.

These maths worksheets can be found in our Superbrain section under Counting and Number

Go to our Number pattern worksheets

Don’t forget that we have some great pages which will help with recognising 2-D shapes. Your child should be able to recognise four basic shapes: circles, squares, rectangles and triangles. These maths worksheets have plenty of interesting pictures just made up of these shapes. Good extension work would be to have a selection of plastic shapes and see what kind of pictures can be made by sliding them around or placing them on top of each other. There are also lots of sticky materials available in craft stores which can be used in scrapbooks or on paper to make pictures. When playing with them don’t forget to keep calling the shapes by their correct names.

Go to the worksheets on Recognising Rectangles, Squares, Circles and Triangles