Double threat – Maths Recap

Maths is one of those subjects that just seems to take place in day to day life with little behind the scenes planning. I simply have a yearly goal I would like the children to work towards based on a reasonable level of progression on from the previous year. 

The children greatly exceeded my annual expectations this year and I realised that their logical brains make them perfect mathematicians.

I still wanted to make the subject fun, however the girls had mentally outgrown the games brought from the previous years. It was vital to maintain their level of interest and not allow them to become bored with the subject, so I had a little brainstorm with myself. I loved board games as a child and we had all the usual suspects and would have regular gaming sessions as a family, but one firm favourite was ‘Game of Knowledge’.

I wanted to recreate a similar board game which would reflect the children’s curriculum this year. This presented a fun way for them to practice maths skills, with learning to count from a dice. Sometimes we would use two dice so they would have to use addition in order to take their turn, and then learn to navigate the board counting the spaces. 

There was also a maths subject section so landing on squares with a large M would result in a mental maths question. This proved an absolute hit and they would play together often without me, and occasionally just by themselves.

Learning maths concepts via YouTube has been a complete game changer, and it is one of the main reasons why the girls are as ahead as they are. Learning maths whilst singing and dancing would have been unheard of in my childhood lessons on the subject. However this is the cornerstone of our learning experience, learning through song. 

A children’s presenter on YouTube named Jack Hartmann has revolutionised maths into a fun subject. He injects energy and self confidence and belief into every video and teaches a vast array of maths and English videos. 

Jack Hartmann makes learning enjoyable and my children turn to his videos for fun in their free time, I do not have to force them to listen to them. 

Another children’s channel called Scratch Garden is also great fun with catchy songs, created to stick in everyone’s mind. You can’t help but learn from these videos. I really recommend them to children aged 3-7 years of age who may find the subject deadly dull. 

The Fire Amazon tablet has been another surprising resource. It hosts dozens of child friendly education apps and games in multiple subjects, but particularly it has a strong maths library. The children love spending hours on these games and they learn and practice a good number of mathematical skills through the repetitive nature of the games. You'll find the usual suspects including Number Jacks and Number Blocks on there. 

I made another concerted effort this year to make maths relevant in their daily lives in order to keep their interest, just taking it to a new level to reflect their current curriculum. 

I would ask ‘Can you fetch me three plates/cups? Can you put these six books away?’ It might not be necessary to the job at hand to state the quantity, but it keeps numbers as part of daily life and inevitably it would make them think and they’d re count to make sure I had said the correct number. 

This could be used as a segway to asking questions like, 'You had six books and you’ve put three of them away, how many have you left?' Once this pattern of behaviour had been established I could take it a step further and start asking questions regarding fractions. 

I would particularly use this method during treat or snack time. They always share a chocolate bar or a pack of buttons between the three of them so division and fractions became a part of life very quickly. There are six pieces to a bar and three of them and they all had to have an equal amount. Sophia understands the concept of halves and thirds from sharing chocolate. Kira has advanced immensely in this topic and knows the number you divide in to produce any fraction between halves to 100ths. She knows how to add basic fractions using a common denominator and can work out basic algebra.

Roughly 80% of my teaching this year has been verbal, on my feet moving around, capturing the children’s attention. Clapping and repetition taught them one to one hundred, twenty down to one, and  counting in hundreds. 

They learnt to count in multiples of one two, five and ten before they were even aware of a multiplication table poster. Mental maths training has also been a major part this year, feeding well into the verbal teaching. 

Sophia can complete mental maths confidently using one to five in subtraction and addition, and using one to ten, working out on her fingers or using counting aids. Kira can complete mental maths confidently using one to ten in subtraction and addition without any aids. She has a natural ability to commit sums and patterns to memory extremely quickly.

Additional topics we covered this year including introducing the clock face to them once they could count in multiples of five. Sophia has learnt the whole hours for the twelve hour clock. Kira can tell the time from the hour to half past the hour. 

They both know their basic 2d and 3d shapes, and can use rulers and scissors appropriately for their age. I brought number blocks for them as they loved the children’s maths program Number Blocks and they have loved constructing shapes out of them. Kira constructed the first ten number blocks from memory to represent the number charters from the show.

I introduced workbooks to them this year and did a session with them once a week, with Kira answering the questions verbally. She finished three aged 3+ workbooks, in numbers, early maths and maths basics, and a 5-6yrs maths basic workbook. 

Sophia wrote the answers down and finished a 3+yrs maths, a 3-4yrs leap ahead maths, an aged 4-5 maths, and a 4-5yrs maths basic workbook. They have completed amazing work this year and I am very proud of them.