Practical Maths

Many useful skills are experienced by measuring liquids and weighing ingredients. Try following a recipe and see if you can measure accurately.

Make a set of 12 cards showing the numbers 0 to 10, but with two 5s. If you wish, you could use playing cards. ♦ Shuffle the cards and give them to your child. ♦ Time how long it takes to find all the pairs to 10. Repeat later in the week. See if your child can beat his / her time.

For this game you need a dice and some dried pasta or buttons.

♦ Start with a pile of pasta in the middle. Count them.

♦ Throw a dice. Say how many pieces of pasta will be left if you subtract that number.

♦ Then take the pieces of pasta away and check if you were right!

♦ Keep playing.

♦ The person to take the last piece wins!

When walking down the street with your child, look at house numbers. These will probably be following a pattern of either odd or even numbers. Can your child predict what number will be on the next house? Talk about the pattern.

Fill a bag with lego bricks, beads or other small items. Take it in turns to ‘grab a handful’ and count them into a container. Write down how many you have. Whoever has the most will win a counter. If you have the same amount you both win a counter. Repeat a number of times and then see who the winner is.

Counting: steps from room to room - guess how many, then walk it and compare. Did it take more/less steps than you thought?

Count your stairs (if you have them) Count forwards as you go up and backwards as you come down.

Can you count them in 10’s, 5’s, 2’s? So step 1 is 10, step 2 is 20 and so on.