delivering grace: Playing with numbers: maths resources

Saturday, 10 January 2015

Playing with numbers: maths resources

This is the second week of the Virtual Curriculum Fair (VCF). This week, the second of four, the VCF is hosted by Susan at Homeschooling Hearts and Minds and Laura at Day by Day in Our World. Last week was all about the Language Arts a.k.a. English. This week is about maths or math, for the non-Brits!

Again, I will talk mainly about my younger two children aged 5 and 8. Middle Son is working for UK exams with GCSE textbooks, Conquer Maths and is due to start work with a tutor, soon.

My aims for the younger two are that they should enjoy maths and see patterns and that they should be numerate and able to take maths exams when the time comes.

We use books but also play games. My aim is to play a maths game every day. We don't always quite manage this but play several times a week.

Our favourite which is played several times a week is Sum Swamp. I can't recommend this too highly, if you have children learning addition/subtraction number bonds to 12. It also covers odd and even numbers. Sum Swamp takes about 10 minutes to play so isn't a major time investment!

Other games we enjoy are
Time Lotto
Trilemma: this can be played at three different levels. The lowest level has multiplication and division by 2, 5 and 10 and some odds and evens. The highest level has tables to 12, common squares and square roots.
Uno
Times table snap which can also be played as matching pairs
Fraction dominoes
Triominos
Pop to the shops

Games which the children loved when they were younger and helped understanding numbers and number correspondence are
The Spotty Dog Game
Picture dominoes
Ten Green Bottles

I have Pizza Fraction Bingo waiting to pull out and hope to be reviewing Numero soon.

We also use geoboards, plastic shapes, an abacus, a big plastic clock and Duplo as maths manipulatives. I make and photocopy 100 squares which we use for learning tables and looking at patterns.

The other main resources we use are Mousematics for up to about 7 (years reception to year 2). This is available from Conquest Books as part of the Mother's Companion. Youngest Son is currently having a change from Mousematics and using Collins New Primary Activity Book 2A.

Younger Daughter is using the Galore Park Junior Maths book 1. learn Maths

Middle Son used the Galore Park books until the end of year 8. We found these books well presented, easy to use and having clear explanations. However, I am torn about whether to continue with Galore Park or whether to change to CIMT's curriculum (Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching) for next year for one or both of the children. I love the structured lesson plans with suggestions about how to explain various concepts-none of it is mega-science but it would save time. It is also free to download. Please note that it doesn't follow the new National Curriculum precisely. The site has a sheet which shows the differences-these appear generally to be a variance of a year between when a topic is taught.