Maths Home Learning

Hi Everyone,

Alongside explicit place value targets, the children are experiencing a series of workshops on the following mathematical concepts:

• Addition and Subtraction: part-part-whole and the connection between addition and subtraction
• Equal Groups: Exploring additive strategies and moving to multiplicative strategies
• Money: equivalence, giving change, identifying Australian notes and coins

A central theme occurring alongside the study of these concepts and strategies is interpreting and solving worded problems, especially ones where different parts of the problem are missing. The children are being encouraged to write their own worded problems during learning agreement for other children to solve. You could help your child write and solve worded problems at home.

The steps to solve these problems are:

1. Read the story
2. Identify what information you have and what information is missing: Is one of the parts missing or are you trying to find the whole?
3. Solve the problem and write a number sentence.

Here are some examples:

Addition and Subtraction:
1. I ate 17 carrot sticks at lunchtime and 10 more at recess. How many biscuits did I eat today?
2. I ate 27 carrot sticks today. I ate 10 at recess, how many did I eat at lunchtime?

Equal Groups: 
1. I have 4 lolly bags, each bag has 6 lollies in it. How many lollies do I have altogether? (finding out the total)
2. I have 24 lollies altogether. They are in bags and there are 6 lollies in each bag. How many bags of lollies do I have? (finding out how many groups there are)
3. I have 24 lollies altogether and they are in 4 equal groups. How many lollies are in each bag? (finding out how many in each group)
4. There are 24 lollies altogether. They are in bags with the same amount of lollies in each bag. Show the different ways they could be packaged in bags. (finding out how many different solutions of equal groups are possible with an answer of 24)

Children need to focus on drawing an accurate picture to show the problem, or modelling it with materials, especially for the equal groups problems. The children must then clearly show what counting strategy they are using. Children will move from counting by ones, to skip counting by 2s and then by higher numbers, and then moving to more efficient strategies like doubling, until they finally begin to learn the area model of multiplication and can draw arrays (equal rows) and can use known multiplication facts to solve problems.

Here is an online resource that they children will be introduced to shortly that shows how to model and solve part-part-whole problems.

http://www.mathplayground.com/thinkingblocks.html


Please speak to Simone if you have any questions about supporting your child with number stories at home.

Thanks!