How to help primary children with maths and other homework?

bylromarha

Have you asked school for a copy of their calculation policy? Maths is a bit different these days to how it was when we learned, so worth checking the style of calculation school is doing.

Also, have you thought about how your child is learning? Kids learn in 3 main ways, seeing, listening and doing. If DD is a Doing learner, she'll find it hard to learn by listening. I'm a primary teacher who did 1:1 work with pupils last year in maths. One girl could not count in 10s at all when sitting at a chair inside. A few sessions striding up and down the playground chanting and she had it licked.

ViolaLass

artichoke wrote: »

although i am not sure how i can motivate her to do it as she is just not interested.... she tried adding 9+7 wrote out a number line on a piece of paper wrote the answer 15.... and and then when the next question asked her 14- 8 = ? she clicked skip and said

"this is boring" and walked off....

I can see her point, I'd find that boring too.

Maybe she could help you with the shopping/organising things round the house/paying the paper bill/whatever you can make up. Then you could realise that you need 3 apples for daddy and 2 for brother and then 3 for me and 2 for you (or whatever) and "how many apples do we need to buy in all then?" either when making the shopping list and/or when actually picking the apples in the supermarket.

Then, when she gets it, you can praise her for getting it AND for helping you and the whole exercise will seem less abstract.

artichoke

ViolaLass wrote: »

I can see her point, I'd find that boring too.

Maybe she could help you with the shopping/organising things round the house/paying the paper bill/whatever you can make up. Then you could realise that you need 3 apples for daddy and 2 for brother and then 3 for me and 2 for you (or whatever) and "how many apples do we need to buy in all then?" either when making the shopping list and/or when actually picking the apples in the supermarket.

Then, when she gets it, you can praise her for getting it AND for helping you and the whole exercise will seem less abstract.

yes, i do need to find ways of making maths more real / useful...

i am worried about her as she is not interested in maths at all and i remember being EXACTLY like that as a child. I used to sit in maths and argue with the teacher (although this was at secondary school)...
i used to say what is the point of this? - why needs to know this? who cares about quadratic equations etc.....

but DD seems to have switched off at a much earlier point than me...

any more suggestions welcome, I have spoken to school who say she is hard to engage in the class as she stares out of the window and does not want to be involved .......she is not motivated by rewards such as stars she just says "whats the point?? - its just a bit of paper!"

her brother is very quick and competitive and i think she has reacted against this ...Last year he did a maths KS1 practice paper and got nearly every question right even though he is only due to due his KS1 in May 2012 but she struggled in her actual KS1 last May and is below average.

That is why i wanted ideas for websites etc so i can separate them out and work with them one at a time....so she does not see how much ahead of her her brother is.

so any more suggestions for methods to motivate her and website to use to help her catch up...

I will talk to school about what they are going to do? It is mixed age class so i think they put them in groups of the same ability not age which means her brother will be in a different (higher) group with older kids in the main, and she will be in a lower group with younger kids...

art

JC9297

If your son is already ahead why do you want to make him do extra maths at home? I would concentrate on devoting your time to your daughter to help her catch up. Do you think she would respond better to working with a tutor rather than you?

kittiej

Could you get her to consider that maths is all around us from nature to money?

Perhaps when out shopping you could ask her to think how maths has played a part in the clothes you are about to buy and give examples that the cloth is produced to a particular width and length and the manufacturer will order say 100m of denim and out of that they will be able to take the measurements of the patterns and work out how many units of say jeans they can cut out. The manufacturer can then work out how many machinists will be able to sew the jeans to produce the order which can be converted into an hourly rate so they will know how much they have to pay in wages.

The manufacturer uses the wages bill and adds the overheads to then decide how much they need to charge the shop. The shop also has overheads and wages to pay so they need to add their share which finally produces the sale price of £10.

This is probably a bit of a big example but you could use all kinds of instances even to the 'bit of paper'.

if she were a little older then the code was an interesting programme to watch.

Hope you can get her to focus soon.

thegirlintheattic

Did her motivation drop after it became evident her brother was further ahead?

artichoke

JC9297 wrote: »

If your son is already ahead why do you want to make him do extra maths at home? I would concentrate on devoting your time to your daughter to help her catch up. Do you think she would respond better to working with a tutor rather than you?

sorry i was not clear - i don't want him to do extra just to do his homework and focus on the topics set at school but if i am going to sit down and give her attention i need to give him some "work" to do, other wise she screams "It is not fair why is he not doing more homework and i am....."

We can't afford a tutor but could afford a subscription to a website for a few months....Also a tutor would focus attention on the fact that she needs a tutor and he does not...

art

artichoke

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

Did her motivation drop after it became evident her brother was further ahead?

Ever since in reception the teaches have commented that she lives in her own world and does not respond to rewards and is hard to engage /motivate.... I have always found it hard to get her to do homework especially as i have them in the same room and DS answers the question before she has read to the end of the sentence....

i can not separate them out as DH works in the evenings...

but she does respond badly to seeing he is ahead and she gives up and says "i am not good at school work, maths, writing or whatever it is..."

I had 5 very academic brothers and i know how she feels and am trying to sort it out before it gets out of hand...

art

artichoke

kittiej wrote: »

Could you get her to consider that maths is all around us from nature to money?

Perhaps when out shopping you could ask her to think how maths has played a part in the clothes you are about to buy and give examples that the cloth is produced to a particular width and length and the manufacturer will order say 100m of denim and out of that they will be able to take the measurements of the patterns and work out how many units of say jeans they can cut out. The manufacturer can then work out how many machinists will be able to sew the jeans to produce the order which can be converted into an hourly rate so they will know how much they have to pay in wages.

The manufacturer uses the wages bill and adds the overheads to then decide how much they need to charge the shop. The shop also has overheads and wages to pay so they need to add their share which finally produces the sale price of £10.

This is probably a bit of a big example but you could use all kinds of instances even to the 'bit of paper'.

if she were a little older then the code was an interesting programme to watch.

Hope you can get her to focus soon.

hi

i try to do a lot of this already - both me and DH are self employed and run our own businesses. Particularly with my business which is farming / food retail she seems how much things cost and what i have to pay. I also involve them in decisions about what we buy ie is it better to buy one of these (branded stuff) or 2 of these (non branded stuff)... they also help to choose our holidays by looking at prices and deciding what is best value for them...


but i will try and get them to do more of these real world maths...

they weigh out the ingredients for the bread machine each night before they go to bed..... i need to think of more things they can do like this....

as i typed this i realise i am saying "they" not "she" and that seems to be the problem .... i need to find a way of spending more one to one time on this without her brother being in the room - which is nearly impossible...

art

ViolaLass

If your son weak at anything else e.g. reading? Even if not, could he, for example, do some reading/writing or whatever while you work with your daughter? That way, he'll be concentrating on something completely different which should stop him butting in with answers and will help your daughter feel less like she's competing with him.