IPS Tips 

F - Year 2 (approximately)- DOING MATHS TOGETHER AT HOME.

A child’s first years are a time of rapid learning. Research tells us that babies have an innate capacity to understand numbers. As your child’s first teacher, you play a key role in developing their numeracy skills from an early age.

Developing numeracy skills early gives children an important foundation for their learning and development. It helps prepare them for daily life, including general problem solving and handling money.

Maths includes noticing numbers, shapes, patterns, size, time and measurement. Incorporating maths into everyday experiences is easy and fun. Maths is everywhere – in the playground, at the shops and at home.

Children need lots of experiences in making, counting, drawing and talking about numbers. The activities in this section will help your child to develop these skills. You may feel the maths your child is doing at school is different from how you were taught, but you can still support your child in many ways. Make connections for your child by explaining how numbers and counting are a part of everyday life.

Hunting for numbers

Number hunts are a fun and engaging activity for your child. Ask your child to find numbers around you. Look at and say the numbers on car number plates, signs, calendars, newspapers, shopping catalogues, speed signs, and houses.

Using playing cards

Playing with cards is always a fun activity, particularly on a rainy day or on holidays.

You can:

• Play matching number games like ‘Snap’ with playing cards.
• Order the numbers on the cards from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest.

Year 3 - 6 (approximately)- EXPLORING NUMERACY WITH YOUR CHILD.

Family participation in learning is one of the most accurate predictors of a child’s success in school and beyond.

Providing opportunities to discuss and engage in mathematics supports your child’s learning in and out of school. Your child will also begin to connect the importance of maths with their everyday activities, such as navigating public transport, comparing and choosing the best item to buy in stores, setting a budget, and cooking.

Talk positively about maths so your child also values it. If your experiences in maths at school were less than ideal, avoid making comments like “I was bad at maths at school,” or “I didn’t like maths because it was too hard.” Comments like these can lower your child’s expectations of themselves, and can perpetuate myths about people being naturally bad or good at maths.

Conversely, if you did well at maths in school, avoid jumping in with answers or solutions. Encourage your child to talk about how they might work out maths problems. This helps boost their confidence and deepens their understanding.

Regardless of your own school experiences in maths, be reassured that maths today is not about learning by rote. Today, the focus is on recognising that there are multiple ways to get an answer, and being able to explain how and why you chose the approach you did.

There are many activities you can do at home to help explore maths with your child. When participating in these activities, avoid associating them with speed. Expecting your child to work quickly on maths can cause maths anxiety. 

Try to focus on the process and not the outcome.

Browsing catalogues

Discussing catalogues can be a great way to improve your child’s maths knowledge of money and percentages. Here are some questions you could ask:

• How would you spend $40 from a catalogue? How many products can you buy for $40?
• Select five products from the catalogue, then calculate what the cost would be if there was a 50% sale. Does it make a difference if you add up the items, and then deduct 50%, or if each item is reduced by 50% then totalled?
• What is the best value sale item in the catalogue? Can you explain your reasoning?
• Compare the cost of a product across different stores using different catalogues. What did you find?