Year 1

Using Our Maths B

Following Units 7-11

These activities bring together the different mathematical skills that your child should now know. By combining these skills in puzzles and activities your child will need to reason and think of solutions, as well as complete calculations. This will help your child to really understand the skills they are learning.

Talk through each group of questions and ask your child how they are going to solve the challenges.

It’s good to get stuck sometimes! When this happens discuss the challenge in the following order:

• What do we need to find out to solve the challenge?
• What do we know by looking at the question?
• Want could we do first?
• How would that help us?

Is there anything else we could do?

Activities:

The more we can make maths part of everyday life for our children the better. So here are some problems for you to read to your child. Try making up your own too.
Remember at this stage to use lots of practical equipment, and not to write things down. Discuss with your child how they find each answer.

If I have a box of 12 pencils and you have a box of 7 pencils, how many pencils do we have all together?

If we watch 1 TV programme today, 2 tomorrow and 3 the next day, how many will we have watched all together?

If we have 20 blocks and we use 9 to make a tower, how many do we have left?

Put some items (up to 20) in a container and ask your child to estimate how many. Then count them out. Now try counting them back in backwards.

Look for opportunities to double simple numbers e.g. pairs of things… I have 2 eyes, you have 2 eyes, so double 2 is 4 eyes. A dog has 4 legs, 2 dogs have…?

Answers: Using Our Maths B Answers (PDF)

Activity: Cakes on a plate

Adapt this activity to use things you have to hand, but keeping the numbers the same. It is important that your child sees that if they move some cakes from one plate it has an impact on the other plates.

There are 3 plates, a blue one a white one and a yellow one holding a total of 10 cakes.
The blue plate has one more cake on it than the white one.
The white plate has 3 less than the yellow plate.
How many cakes are on each plate?

Answers: Using Our Maths B Answers (PDF)