Help Your Child With Maths

Many people feel they are not good at maths and many parents feel they are not good enough at Maths to be able to help their children with maths homework. Parents may also feel that the maths being taught now is different from when they were in school and they do not feel confident in explaining certain activities. Regardless of your own experience with school mathematics, you can encourage your child to develop a love of maths through supporting them, helping them with homework and making maths fun.

Spend time with your children on simple board games, puzzles, activities that encourage maths skills. We all use maths in everyday life, whether we realise it or not. Young children playing with water or a sandbox are learning concepts of mass, volume, density, weight, measurement, space. The kitchen is filled with tasty opportunities to teach children about fractions. Following a cooking recipe teaches concepts of weighing, measuring, logical reasoning and following instructions. Calculating money, filling a car with petrol, estimating the length of a car journey, estimating time intervals are just some of our normal everyday activities which require mathematical reasoning.

TOP TIPS FOR PARENTS TO SUPPORT YOUR CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICS

Encourage your children to use technology to enhance their maths skills and problem-solving techniques. Here are some useful maths websites where you will find a wide range of maths resources and activities for all levels.

https://pdst.ie/primary/stem/mathematics

The PDST site not only gives parents information about the maths curriculum but also includes activities from previous maths weeks to print out.

https://nrich.maths.org/primary

This website was created by Cambridge University. It includes lots of interesting maths puzzles.

https://www.mathsweek.ie/2023/maths-at-home-activities/

The Irish Maths Week site has some lovely maths activities designed to be done at home.

www.rainforestmaths.com

A variety of interactive maths activities based on all strands are available on this website.

https://www.senteacher.org

SEN Teacher provides cost free teaching & learning resources such as printable number fans, number lines and so on for students.

www.scoilnet.ie

This is an Irish website, developed by the National Council for Technology in Education. It is a portal site and enables users to search for resources according to class, subject and/or strand unit.

https://www.primaryresources.co.uk

This website contains free lesson plans, activity ideas and resources for primary teachers on all curricular areas, including numeracy.

www.nzmaths.co.nz/

This website is designed by the Ministry of Education in New Zealand and provides teachers with units of work based on many aspects of maths.

http://www.teachingtables.co.uk/

This subscription based website contains a variety of interactive activities to consolidate number facts.

https://www.ictgames.com/resources.html

This website contains a variety of mathematical games that are generally targeted at infant school teachers and parents of infant age children.

https://www.aaamath.com

This is an American site with numerous tasks on all aspects of maths.This is a site developed for teachers which contains links to a range of curricular resources.

https://www.bgfl.org/

BGfL (Birmingham Grid for Learning) includes interactive content, e¬briefing facilities and a learning environment.

https://www.leics.gov.uk/index/education.htm

This site includes printable flip flops which are an effective tool for mental maths.

http://www.mathstories.com/

This website aims to boost children’s math problem solving and critical¬thinking skills and contains many interactive and non¬interactive word problems for children to enjoy!

http://www.schoolhousetech.com

This subscription¬based website allows the user to create printable worksheets, activities, and tests for the differentiated classroom.

http://www.imta.ie

Updated in September 2006 with contacts for local branches for teachers interested in joining the Irish Maths Teachers Association

http://www.nctm.org

This is an American site for mathematics teachers of all levels. To get full benefit from site you must join but some good free material available.

http://www.teachnet.ie

TeachNet Ireland contains a variety of resources and webquests which have been designed by practicing Irish mathematics’ teachers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/

This comprehensive website is used by many teachers and children.