Numeracy

Numeracy Tips for Summer

With a long school holiday break ahead, it's worth considering the things we can talk about and involve our children in over the break to keep them thinking mathematically. Don't forget that students have access to Mathletics and Skoolbo on their iPads, where a range of engaging Numeracy tasks are found.

Here are some other ideas from Back to Front Maths:

Counting:

Count stairs, letter boxes, trucks etc as opportunities arise.
Put out the number of knives needed for dinner and ask your child to get the same number of forks and spoons.
Ask your child to get everyone a cup for afternoon tea.
Ask questions like “If Grandma comes to stay for the weekend, how many people will there be?” “If Daddy leaves the table, how many people will there be?”
Talk about numbers as they play e.g. the number of blocks they are using to build their tower or the number of wheels on their car.
Read stories that have a number focus e.g. The Three Billy Goats Gruff
Ask your child to count and sort larger numbers of items.
Ask questions like “How many muesli bars do I have if there are three packets of muesli bars that have ten in each and four single muesli bars?”
Talk about larger numbers up to 100 as they occur (e.g. House numbers on long streets).

Number names:

Ask your child to tell you what the numbers on letterboxes, number plates on cars or pages in a book are.
Look for examples of number names on signs and environmental print.
Collect numbers from newspapers and magazines.
Read stories that contain numbers and ask your child to find the number name or numeral on the page.
Talk about two-digit numbers whenever opportunities arise. Ask questions such as “Which is bigger/smaller/the same/different?”
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.

Counting in 2s and 5s:

Count stairs or objects in twos 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.
Ask your child to make pairs of the socks as they come out of the washing basket and count them in twos.
Talk about numbers as they play e.g. the number of blocks they are using to build their tower or the number of wheels on their car.
Count the number of wheels on the trucks that go by.
Make hand prints to count in 5s.
Count shoes as these come in pairs.

Place value is heavily linked to relative size. Here are some good things to try with your kids:

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 numbers whenever opportunities arise. Ask questions such as “Which is bigger/smaller/the same/different?”
Encourage students to work out how they could pay for something using different combinations of $100 notes, $10 notes and $1 coins.
Involve your children in decision making about buying furniture. Look at prices for furniture/electric goods in catalogues and talk about which is more expensive (e.g. when considering buying a new microwave or tv or fridge…). Have students tell you what the price is. Cut out the pictures with the prices, and order them from the cheapest to the most expensive, and then write their good and bad points underneath.
Have your children measure amounts of liquids using millimetres (e.g. 250mL, 500mL) and compare which one is the biggest. Try using smaller measuring instruments to put the total amount together and then compare to check that they are the same amounts (e.g. to make 250mL use a 100mL cup and a 50mL cup: 100mL + 100mL + 50mL = 250mL, then compare it to your original measurement of 250mL to see that they are the same). This can be done in bath time with different sized measuring cups and jugs.
Cut up a “hundreds chart” into a jig saw puzzle to do at home.
Use number lines to examine relative size: For example talk about house numbers up to 100 as they occur on long streets.

Basic understanding of fractions is pivotal to much of primary and high school maths and is one of the most difficult concepts for kids to understand. Try to build these into your regular routines:

Involve your child in cooking activities which require half a cup of an ingredient. He/she could half fill the cup measure for you.
When making sandwiches or cutting other foods, talk about how you cut them into halves. Use words such as half, even, equal, parts.
Involve your child in sharing with another ensuring that each person has a fair share. Both halves need to be equal.
Make sure that kids understand that you cannot have a “bigger half” or bigger third, or fifth or anything else. Fractions must be equal.
Link quarters to the clock – quarter past, half past, quarter to, o’clock. Four quarters only. Not all fractions are called quarters, only fourths.

Ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc) have strong links to fractions. Try these:

Talk about the order in which you complete everyday activities (e.g. making a cake, putting on the washing, set the table). Use words like first, next, last, third, to describe the sequence of actions.
Give your child directions using the language of order (e.g. “First put the rubbish in the bin and then go and do your homework”).
Ask your child to arrange things in order (e.g. the family’s shoes). Talk about the order using words like first, second, last.

Making Ten:

Roll a dice and say how many more make ten.
Play "Snap" with regular playing cards, but rather than look for pairs of numbers that match, a "snap" is made when the two numbers add up to ten.

Here is a link to a great article on Thinking Numeratively from the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers: https://www.aamt.edu.au/Library/Other/Thinking-numerately-All-children-are-mathematicians/(language)/eng-AU