Curriculum, Learning & Engagement

Numeracy Specialist Report - Mark Condon 

There are better ways for your child to learn Maths at home than just Worksheets

The question I get almost every day is, “How do I get my child to practise their Maths facts, skills and strategies at home?” The answer I always give is “What Maths do you do yourself everyday?"

Maths is everywhere – the more you look, the more you'll see. Woodend Primary School has been very fortunate to work closely with The Mathematical Association of Victoria where we have trained all of our staff in improving our Numeracy outcomes and making each and everyone of our students come to school saying, “I love Maths!” I thought I'd share with you what some of the MAV have found are the best tips for exploring maths in the world around you.

Here are our top 5 tips for parents:

1. Maths in cooking

Cooking is all about maths! And it’s something we can all do. Get children to read instructions, measure ingredients, and ask questions about the maths involved. Let them explore the numbers, while being rewarded with a tasty treat! Extend this to maths in the veggie garden as you grow ingredients.

Explore: Measuring and quantities, time, fractions, estimation, and temperature.

2. Maths in sports and exercise

Many children love sport, but often don’t realise how much maths there is in it! Ask questions about performance statistics, and compare and analyse players. Or try footy tipping as a way to analyse team performance. Exercise is an opportunity! Estimate how far you will run today, and how long it will take. Use an app like Strava to record the activity and look at the stats.

Explore: Distance, time, speed, estimating, statistics, comparing, data and data display.

3. Playing games

Games are an awesome way to have fun with maths, any games with counting and dice help develop basic number sense. Many games explore money (Think Monopoly!), and puzzles often work with patterns and shapes.

4. Money, shopping and budgets

Have you ever given your children a budget to purchase the ingredients for a meal? What about shopping for their clothes? You could explore paying the bills, or calculating how much it costs to run a car? What about budgeting for a holiday! Depending on your child’s age there are plenty of activities to try.

5. Just ask questions

Regardless of the maths you are exploring, the main strategy here is to ask questions! Let your children explore, while you prompt them with questions to challenge and expand their thinking. You don’t need to know the answers you can work them out together!