Mathematics

Number Game (Foundation - Year 2) 

Get out of my House v2 

Concept: Sequencing numbers

Equipment: Deck of playing cards, counters, paper, pens

Good questions to ask when playing: 

• What's the other number you can place your counter on? 
• Is it a good idea to place lots of tokens on one square? Why/why not? 
• What would you do differently next time you played? 

*Shout out to Kerri Smith & LoveMaths.com for the game resource. 

Adam Spencer's Maths 101 

You may have heard of Adam Spencer from the ABC. He is an Australian comedian, media personality and former radio presenter. He also has a law degree and a PhD in Pure Maths. 

He recently released a new book 'Maths 101.' The book explores the curly maths questions your primary school kids will ask you and provides simple, easy to understand answers. I highly recommend it as a resource for all parents - a valuable mathematics dictionary for all! 

In the last edition of the newsletter, I explored multiple multiplication strategies used investigated in Years 3 - 6. Adam Spencer reiterates the importance that children need to understand how multiplication works, building on from their understanding of addition and subtraction. He also stresses the importance of children knowing and memorising their times tables - though not before they recognise arrays and patterns. 

"I can't stress how important it is. Through all of primary school and high school, your child will do so much multiplication and other mathematics that requires multiplication that if they don't know their tables really well they will struggle."