How to use this Blog to help your child with their maths

My main objective when setting out on this venture was to create a blog that could be accessible to all, whether that be Pre-school children, 5th Grade / Year 6 children, children that need to extra support, gifted and talented children or just children that enjoy maths and want to do a little more.

Therefore, in order to help as many people as I can and to keep this interesting and not have you falling asleep through boredom I am going to try to keep variety within my entries. Most entries will be one of the following:

• Something mathematical that I found interesting and wanted to share and talk about.
• A mini lesson - for those of you that want to work with your children, improving skills, I will be posting mini lessons that you can use as a basis from which to start the process of creating a happy and successful mathematician.
• A Maths problem - A fun problem that the whole family can get involved in that also will promote the idea of maths being fun and achievable.
• A fun mathematical activity - again something that anyone and everyone can do that will raise the profile of maths for your children.

My recommendation, as a maths teacher, is that you use all my articles to help your child / children. If just 'lessons' are done at home (what I call the slog work) then you will both find this hard and struggle to keep motivated. Sometimes you need a break from this type of work. Adding problems in between 'lessons' can be lots of fun. They can also be used to consolidate things that have been learnt within 'lesson'. On top of that they really help your child to take their understanding of the maths they have done and apply it. Plus it can help families have fun together on those wet, rainy or cold, snowy days.

Some of you may be questioning how the same thing can help children that need support and gifted and talented children. Ultimately when I work with children I spend a lot of time boosting their key skills. Children that need support definitely need to build their key skills as this is often one of the reasons they are finding maths difficult. Likewise I have found that often gifted and talented mathematicians also need help in this way. I have had many of these children say to me 'I don't know how I got the answer, I just did!'. It is great that their brains can do this but they do need to take a step back and ensure they know the key skills and how they help them with the more complex maths work. This will then ensure they have the skills for the maths work to become even more challenging. Finally the articles / activites I write about can be good conversation points, can promote the idea of maths being interesting and can be fund to share.

As you read through the blog I will be writing on the articles how each particular activity can be used to help at different levels.

Good luck, enjoy and please comment or email me if you have any questions: meaningfulmaths@gmail.com