Talk together and have fun with numbers and patterns
Help your child to:
- find and connect numbers around your home and neighbourhood; eg find 7, 17 and 27 on letterboxes
- count forwards and backwards starting with different numbers (eg 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, then back again)
- make patterns when counting forwards and backwards (eg "5, 10, 15, 20 then 20, 15, 10, 5 and 30, 40, 50, 60 or 12, 14, 16, 18, …")
- do addition and subtraction problems by counting forwards or backwards in their heads (eg 8 + 4, 16 – 3)
- count the number of poi in a kapa haka performance learn their ‘ten and...’ facts (eg 10 + 4, 10 + 7) double and halve numbers to 20 (eg 7 + 7 is 14, half of 14 is 7).
Here's a tip - being positive about mathematics is really important for your child’s learning – even if you didn’t enjoy it or do well at it yourself at school.