Practical maths tasks for your pupils to try at home

Although the Key Stage 2 SATs may no longer be taking place this year during to the Covid-19 outbreak, it’s still great practice to continue with revision while your pupils are at home. Not only will it mean pupils can continue their learning journey but they will also be ready and prepared for year 7 when they return to school.

I agree that exposing pupils to the SATs style questions is essential as pupils need to be prepared for the types of question that will be presented to them as their learning journey progresses. However, it is important to strike a balance, especially at this time when some children feel a bit overwhelmed.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to support a boy who is struggling with his maths, so I decided to begin my session with making crêpes! After we had followed the recipe for making 8 pancakes, I asked him to scale the recipe to make 16, then 4 and finally 12. This boy who had been struggling with scaling and correspondence problems in class was doing fine with using his maths knowledge in a practical context. Later in the session, I showed him a question from the Achieve Mathematics SATs Revision: The Higher Score revision book and he couldn’t quite believe he had been working on very similar problems when thinking about the pancake recipe! 

If you’re setting maths exercises for your pupils to complete at home, why not try some of these ideas:

  • Encourage them to set up a role play fruit and veg market or café to solve money problems


2019 Paper 3 

  • Ask them to look at shopping offers online to calculate percentage discounts but also compare how good value the offers are compared with the original price 


2017 Paper 2  

  • Ask them to build a block city using 1cm3 cubes to calculate and compare volume but also calculate how to scale up models to real life size buildings


2019 Paper 2 
 

  • Get them to surf online to look at the weather forecasts to compare, find the difference in temperatures and calculate the mean temperatures


2018 Paper 2 
 

  • Encourage them to make fruit punch using different sized bottles and jugs to get pupils to read scales and solve capacity problems

 

2018 Paper 2 
 
For some pupils, setting up a few short practical tasks in real life purposeful contexts (of course alongside completing relevant SATs questions that align with the task) could have a positive impact on their learning and attitude towards maths. Are you tempted to give it a go?

Find out more about our Achieve Mathematics SATs Revision resources here.

Sarah-Anne Fernandes is the Managing Director of SolveMaths Ltd where she delivers mathematics consultancy support for schools to improve standards. She is an established and trusted mathematics author and series editor of our Achieve Mathematics SATs Revision series.

Tags

Achieve, homework, key stage 2, learning, Mathematics, Maths, Maths Curriculum, Parents, primary, primary maths, revision

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