Teaching And Home Schooling Ideas

 Times Table Bingo. Write down 6 numbers from a times table.  We wrote them on a house picture. The children might want to write out the whole x table next to the house before they choose the 6 numbers.  I wrote 0x,1x,2x,3x,4x,5x,6x,7x,8x,9x,10x,11x,12x on slips of paper. Then pick a card eg 4x and work out 4x the chosen times table eg 4x6=24.  If you have 24 on your house then cross it off. The first person to cross their numbers off shouts bingo. You can repeat with other x tables. This is a great game to play at home with the family, over zoom with a number of children or in the classroom on whiteboards.

Play guess the number. One person thinks of a number, we started with a number between 0 and 99.  The others take it in turns to ask questions to try to work out the number.  Is the number odd, even, a single digit/in the ones, two digits/in the tens, is it a multiple of..., is it more than..., less than..., is it a square number etc.  You can write down the clues as you find out answers.  You can write out numbers it could be as you narrow it down.  You could look at a number square if you have one to help you or you can cross off the numbers on the square.  Once the guessers have narrowed down the numbers they can take it in turns to guess the number. Once you've worked out the number someone else can think of one. After you have played it a few times, you can extend the numbers to the 100s or 1000s. Happy guessing! 

Practise your times tables with a pack of cards. Turn over 2 cards and multiply the numbers together. Eg 2 x 8 =16. First person the say the correct answer wins the cards. We said ace was 1, Jack was 11, Queen was 12 and King was 0.

Butterfly Multiplication. I cut out a butterfly shape from some spare cardboard I had. I wrote out some multiplication and division calculations on the cardboard butterfly. I wrote the answers on stickers. Place the sticker answer over the calculation. I saw this idea on the imagination tree instagram account.

Colour in the buckets with up to 3 colours in as many different ways as possible. Helps to develop a logical and methodical way of working.

I don't know about you but we have lots of teddies in our house. We have sorted and grouped them into animal teddies. Draw a chart and list all the groups of teddy animals. We physically sorted and grouped them and laid the teddies in lines like a graph so they were easier to count. We counted each group and wrote down the amount in tally marks and numbers. Next time we will answer some questions about the groups of teddies. eg How many teddies altogether? How many more bears than dogs? How many fewer rabbits than dogs? How many groups only have one or two animals? How many bears are there?

Sewing Geometric Multiplication Circles. We've been finding new ways to practise x tables. Write down the answers to a times table. We started with the 2 x table. 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24. We talked about the numbers being even and the pattern repeating. On small circles that are labelled around the circle at equal points 0 to 9 we drew the geometric pattern. So look at the answers and the pattern for the unit digit goes 0,2,4,6,8,0 etc. On a small circle rule lines from 0 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 6, 6 to 8 and 8 to 0. Then using embroidery thread or wool sew the geometric pattern onto a larger circle labelled with the numbers 0 to 9 at equal intervals. Repeat for the other times tables, we are doing one a day! It's making practising tables more fun!

Use a 100 Square and up to 4 dice and some coloured pencils. Each player takes it in turn to roll the dice, start with 2 dice. What maths statement can you make with the numbers? eg if you throw a 6 and 5, you could add 6+5 =11, multiply 6x5=30, or subtract 6-5=1. Write down the chosen calculation and colour in the answer. Aim of the game is to get 4 in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonally. When you've exhausted numbers with 2 dice, you can add 3 or 4 dice to make your maths calculations more tricky and make larger numbers. Score 1 point each time a player gets 4 numbers in a row.

Draw a tally chart of birds seen in the garden. After we made our bird feeder from a recycled milk carton we talked about the birds we might see and noted the birds that were using the feeder. (Mainly sparrows, blue tits and great tits.) We had a look through some bird books and listed birds we might see in the garden and that we have seen in the past. (Good reading exercise.) Then we drew a chart and picked out 7 birds from our list. Ask / Explain what tally marks are and how to represent 5. (Good for practising 5xtable.) Fill in the tally chart with the number of sightings.

Can you make as many different calculations as you can using the numbers in the star. Think about the different types of calculations, can you do the calculation the opposite way round? So 1+4 then 4 + 1. Also try to work methodically and logically through the numbers. Eg Do all the addition first. Also work through the numbers eg 1+2,2+1, 1+3,3+1,1+4,4+1,2+3,3+2,2+4,4+2,3+4,4+3. What other operations can you do? eg subtraction, multiplication and division. You can then extend the maths investigation by doing other stars with more numbers.

Practise x tables with a Calculator Connect 4 game. Draw the grid of numbers.  You can only use the following numbers to multiply.  1,3,5,6,7,8,9,11,13 Take it in turns to multiply two different numbers together using a calculator.  Colour in the number on the grid.  First player to get 4 in a row wins.  We carried on and got a point for each four in a row we made. 

Practise x tables with a x table colouring sheet. We have a minecraft fan in the house and twinkl have some minecraft x table sheets on their website. I am sure that they will have other themes so you can get your child to practise their x tables whilst colouring in a picture they like.

Draw a bar chart of the length of objects you have measured either in the house or from the garden. We used the measurements from objects in nature we had measured on a walk down our lane.  https://teachingandhomeschoolingideas.blogspot.com/2020/04/measuring-in-nature.html?m=1 I drew the axes and Thomas labelled them. The lengths were drawn in mm going up in 10s. (Chance to practise 10x table!) I measured two centimetres for each 10mm and so could put a mark for every 5mm as we had an object that measured 15mm. Once axes are drawn and labelled, then draw the bars at the correct length. Colour in each bar a different colour. We gave our barchart a title - This Is A Bar Graph To Show The Lengths Of Objects.

We created an animal from fraction shapes. We used 6 coloured paper circles. Leave one unfolded, fold one in half, one in quarters, one in 8ths, one in 16ths and one in 32 equal parts. The 32 folding is tricky. Ask your child what are the fractions of the equal parts. We labelled them 1 over 1, 1 over 2, 1 over 4, 1over 8, 1over 16, 1 over 32. You can talk about doubling numbers if that's appropriate to your child. We cut up the circles and created an animal from the fraction parts. I think this is a turtle but you can create anything. You can then discuss how many halves, quarters, eighths etc make up the picture. We also talked about the picture being symmetrical and having one line of symmetry. If we cut it down the middle horizontally it is the same on each side.

Make a bird feeder from a recycled milk carton. We cut out 4 holes, one in each side of the milk carton. Adults may need to do this or help with this. Use permanent markers to colour in the container or stick on shiny paper or objects to attract the birds. Pierce a hole in either side of the top and thread ribbon or string to create a hanger for the bird feeder. We collected twigs and glued them to the four sides to act as a perch for the birds. You could glue twigs to the top of the carton to make it look like the roof of a bird house. Fill feeder with seed, nuts or fat balls. Hang on a tree in the garden. Record types and number of birds that use the bird feeder in a tally chart.

We went for a walk in our garden and farm lane with clipboard, ruler and tape measure. We measured small objects in nature, but you could measure objects in the home. We measured in cm and converted to mm as well. 1cm = 10mm so good for practising 10x table. We are going to draw a barchart of the lengths.

Draw a grid onto paper, I drew an 8 x 8 grid making the squares quite big. Then colour in squares in the grid to make a robot. Then count the number of total squares. So 8x8 is 64. This is the denominator. Then count the coloured in squares. We had 37, which is the numerator. Can discuss what numerator and denominator are again. Numerator is number of parts working with, denominator is total number of equal parts. Then workout how many not coloured. Could do a subtraction. Eg 64 - 37 = 27. Extend by asking what fraction is coloured yellow, purple, green etc. Can also talk about symmetry as robot has a line of symmetry down the centre. (Except for the hands being a different colour!) We would love to see your fraction Robots so send us your photos.

Fraction Flowers We coloured in the fraction of the shape on flower pictures. We talked about the fraction coloured in and the fraction not coloured in. We talked about numerator and denominator.

Parts of a Fraction. We drew a big 3D Fraction and labelled the parts. Top number is the numerator. Bottom number is the denominator. We coloured the numerator blue as the sky is at the top and coloured the denominator green as that is under the sky! We discussed what the numbers mean. Numerator is the number of parts you have/are working with. Denominator is the number of parts altogether/number of equal parts.

We counted some bean seeds we had saved and shared them out. You could count sweets, milk carton tops, buttons, lego pieces, coins etc We then worked out half, quarter and eighths by sharing the seeds out. We also practised counting in 2s, 3s, 5s. You could workout different fractions.