Maths at home

summer holiday

Keeping children's skills sharp and ready for the next year of learning.

The long Summer holiday is a time when we know children's academic learning can go out of long term memory with some important learning lost. Learning is about regular and routine practice and holidays can be rather irregular times with less routine. This makes them great and Mathematics over a holiday should be different from the day to day of a school week. There are lots of fun holiday things families can enjoy over Summer, different ways of giving children the routine practice that will serve them so well in September. The list below offers some things that can keep your child's Maths (and some Science) as they left it in July. They could even return in September knowing and understanding even more!

• Regular Mathematics practice is just as important in late July and through August as it is the rest of the year. Whether number bonds (numbers that add together to make 10, 100, 1000, 1) or times tables learned in school, regular and quick quizzing will help. There are lots of resources below.

• Games are a low stress, fun way of embedding important mathematical concepts from counting on (in board games like Snakes and Ladders which has the added advantage of being a 100 square) to card games like 21 (for adding up to get to 21). They are fun ways for the whole family to play together and cementing in Mathematics learning.

• Cooking and baking is just full of maths. Reading scales, understanding grams and kilos (or indeed pounds and ounces!), timing the oven all put Maths in a real life context where it is so well learned. And if having extra guests or if people are out you can double or halve - teaching about ratio and proportion (hard) in a low threat, practical way).

• Estimating the cost of shopping the Supermarket can help with quick mental calculation and rounding up or down to the nearest £1 or (for older children) even 50p. Children who know the cost of living might even nag less in the shop and will be entertained and may even be distracted from noticing the not on the list but enticing objects that might be described as land-fill pending!

• Reading maps and planning journeys will help Geography and Mathematical concepts like grid references. Planning the journey can also help some children with autistic type difficulties engage with travel, pre-processing the experience.