Practical Maths

There is an idea among school communities that maths is a difficult abstract set of activities that need to be learned in order to be good at the subject. This is an interesting idea that denies much of the import and creativity that make maths an exciting and practical skill for real life.

This week I thought I would share a few ideas for bringing maths to life in the very simplest way, and show that it is the most basic skills that lead to the ability to think in the imaginative ways that lead to mathematical success in later years.

Understanding quantity is the key to dealing with numbers inside our heads. If you can’t work out the value of numbers and the general size you are considering, then estimating, checking and understanding are going to be difficult. Children find number ordering relatively easy by rote – many nursery children can count to fifty easily, but few have a sense of quantity and constructing this is an important task. An activity you can try for your selves is looking at a crowd of people (in a stadium or on the news) and asking ‘how many people can I see?’  For children estimating simple numbers is difficult: twenty, thirty  or forty - do they recognise the relative sizes? Most children assume that large numbers are homogenous and similar to each other instead of vastly different. People who are good at mental arithmetic generally have an accurate picture of the size of numbers to use alongside a quick understanding of the operation required. For those of you who find it hard to add up and divide the bill without a calculator at the end of the restaurant meal, you may not be bad at maths at all, but your mental picture of the numbers and quantity bonds is not well established, and you dont quite trust it!

So helping children to develop a notion of quantity is very useful. Guessing the number of things in a jar is a good idea, guessing first and then checking, and then playing again with other amounts to consolidate. Counting money is a truly valuable activity – estimating by recognising the different denominations, and not by the size of the coin heap! I have always used cards with children that find number concepts difficult. Simple games of gathering cards in turn round the group to make up an exact number… this game is fantastic for children on many levels firstly because children love turn taking games with their parents, secondly because it is number conservation and quantity practice, but thirdly and most usefully because the card configurations of numbers (diamonds, spades, hearts and clubs) always use the same shape for their numbers, and this allows children to develop a mental image of the quantity named by the number.

Once exhausted by number games how about the quantity of liquids or capacity - can you identify 100ml? Cookery with children is great introduction to measurement; ask them to measure and check, all the while reminding them of the sizes they are looking at. How tall are your children? Make a guess before you get out the tape measure – and ask them to guess too.

Maths is a game the whole family can play!