Maths: Tips for Parents

Kindergarten - 

Weeks 3 -Topic: Fractions

• A half is 1 of 2 equal parts of a whole. This is the beginning of learning about fractions. Encourage your child to discover that a fraction is a part of a whole. The whole could be an object, a group of objects or a number. Show that to create a half, a whole is split into 2 equal parts.

• Find as many opportunities to create half in daily life and share them with your child;

  • Cut the ribbon or string in half

Year 1/2

Weeks 1-3 - Topic: Multiplication

Forming groups focuses on:

• using groups to solve multiplication problems.

  You can help your Year 1 and Year 2 child at home by:

• playing skip counting games or taking turns to count by 2s, 3s, 5s, and 10s
• using 5c, 10c or $2 coins to skip count money
• drawing a skip counting hopscotch path with chalk. Use the hopscotch path in reverse to skip count backwards.
• Using sticky dots, textas, M&Ms, playdough or Lego to make groups and getting children to write the repeated addition facts to match.
• Use paddle pop sticks to create groups and add them together to multiply and find your answer.
• Try a 100s chart and colour in the numbers as you add on top of them to find the answer to your question.
• Can you find any patterns?
• Arrays are a grid-like pattern. Explore around you and find arrays! It could be a bookshelf, the kitchen drawers or the plates laid at the dinner table. Work out what these arrays are (their rows and columns) and their answer if they were multiplied.
• A fun way to show arrays is to bake some muffins or cookies and multiply the rows and columns to work out how many you will make.
• Make arrays with items around the house. Challenge yourselves to see who can make the arrays in the fastest time!

Year 3/4 

Weeks 1-3 - Topic: Division & Inverse Operations

• Four easy ways to practise division at home 

   

Year 5/6

Weeks 1-3 -  Topic: Multiplicative Relations

Use Real-Life Examples

Grocery Shopping: Ask your child to calculate the total cost of multiple items or compare prices to determine better deals.

Cooking: Use recipes to illustrate multiplication, such as doubling a recipe or dividing it into portions.

Use highlighters to mark important information. Word problems are overwhelming, but you can help your child break the problem down by only highlighting the parts of the problem that are important. Teach them to highlight important numbers and key phrases in math problems so they can focus on what matters.

Talk about and use in everyday situations all the different language that is used for the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Real-World Scenarios: Incorporate multiplication questions into daily activities, like setting the table (e.g., "If each person gets 3 pieces of cutlery, how many pieces do we need for 4 people?").