Maths: Tips for Parents

Quick Tips for Success

• Use concrete materials: Whenever possible, use play money, LEGO bricks, or pasta pieces to represent groups.
• Focus on the "Why": Instead of just asking "What's the answer?", ask "How do you know that 4,050 is bigger than 4,005?"

• Keep it positive: Math "anxiety" is real. If they get stuck, frame it as a puzzle to be solved together rather than a test.

   

Kindergarten - 

Week 4 -Topic: Forming Groups

• identifying and discussing patterns in and around your home such as lounge or bed linen material colours or shapes. For example, blue square – yellow circle, blue square – yellow circle, blue square – yellow circle
• Gather collections of small items to make patterns (e.g., buttons and coins; spoons of two sizes; crayons and markers). Take turns arranging the
• objects in a pattern for the other to describe and tell what comes next. For example: coin, coin, button, ...; big spoon, small spoon, ...; crayon, marker, marker…)
• singing songs, creating dances and readings books with repeating, rhyming or rhythmic numbers, such as There were 10 in the bed 
• noticing patterns in nature, for example a beehive, petals on a flower
• point out and talk about patterns around you, or in books. Look at wrapping paper or wall paper options. Discuss decorative patterns on posters and boxes.
• Point out repeating patterns in the daily routine: after fruit time there is always a story at school.
• Sing songs where there is a pattern, such as the same line or chorus repeated.
• Point out patterns in action songs or dances.
• Read stories and sing songs where there is a pattern of numbers going up or down.
• Make a staircase pattern with Lego bricks, dominoes or tiles and ask children to continue it.

Year 1/2

Week 4-6 Topic: Whole Number

• Count stairs, letter boxes, or objects in two, threes, fives and tens whenever opportunities arise;
• Put out the number of knives and forks needed for dinner and ask your child to count them in sets of two;
• Talk about numbers whenever opportunities arise. Ask questions such as “Which is bigger/smaller/the same/different?”, house numbers on long streets;
• Take note of larger numbers as they occur (e.g. house numbers, page numbers in books).
• Encourage your child to read the numbers and talk about other ways they could have been written.
• Talk about the order in which you complete everyday activities such as preparing a meal, setting the table. Use words such as first, next, last, third, to describe the sequence of actions.
• Give your child directions using the language of order eg “First put the rubbish in the bin and then go and do your homework”.
• Ask your child to arrange objects in order, eg the family’s shoes. Talk about the order using words like first, second, third, last.

Year 3/4 

Weeks 4-6 Topic: Whole Number

• Look at car prices or electronics in catalogs. Ask, "What is the value of the 7 in $17,450?" (Answer: 7,000)
• This is often where kids trip up. Practice writing numbers like "five thousand and forty-two" ($5,042$) and discuss why the zero is necessary in the hundreds column.
• If you see the number 250, ask: "If I didn't have any hundred-dollar notes, how many ten-dollar notes would I need to make this amount?" (25 tens).
• Draw a long line on a piece of paper with 0 at one end and 10,000 at the other. Ask your child to estimate where 5,000 goes, then 2,500, then 8,900.
• Use a deck of cards (remove 10s and Jokers). Deal 4 cards to each person. The goal is to arrange your cards to make the largest possible number.

• If an item is $18, ask your child to round it to the nearest $10. If you have three items, ask them to round each and estimate the total before you get to the checkout.

   

Year 5/6

Weeks 3-4 Topic: Whole Number

Encourage Mental Math:

• Help your child develop mental math skills by practicing calculations in their head. For example, encourage them to break down problems into smaller, more manageable parts or use known facts to solve related problems.

Relate to Real-life Scenarios:

Connect math to everyday situations. Use real-life examples to show how addition and subtraction are used in daily activities like shopping, cooking, or dividing items among family members.

Some misconceptions that are common with this age that you could discuss with your child when they are identified in real life context:

• Child misapplies knowledge of whole numbers when reading decimals and ignores the decimal point. For example, a student reads the number 45.7 as, “four fifty-seven” or “four hundred fifty-seven.”  Instead of the correct formal way "forty-five and seven-tenths" or informal way "Forty-five point seven"
• Child misapplies procedure for rounding whole numbers when rounding decimals and rounds to the nearest ten instead of the nearest tenth, etc. For example,  Round 3045.26 to the nearest tenth. Student responds, “3050” or “3050.26.” Instead of the correct way "3045.3."
• Child misapplies rules for comparing whole numbers in decimal situations. For example, 0.058 > 0.21 because 58 > 21 OR 2.04 > 2.5 because it has more digits.

• Child adds or subtracts without considering place value, or starting at the right as with whole numbers. For example, 4.15 + 0.1 = 34.16 or 12 – 0.1 = 11.

  Tell your child: "Line up the dots!" When the decimal points are lined up, the columns match correctly.

  Always add a "placeholder zero" so both numbers have the same amount of digits. 0.1 becomes 0.10. Now it's easy: 4.15 + 0.10 = 4.25.

• Child misunderstands the use of zero as a placeholder. For example, 1.5 is the same as 1.05

  Use the money example:

   $1.5$ is $\$1.50$ (1 dollar and 50 cents).

  $1.05$ is $\$1.05$ (1 dollar and 5 cents).

• Children think that decimals with more digits are smaller because tenths are bigger than hundredths and thousandths. For example, .845 is smaller than .5