Children also find these dates fun so why not ask when the next interesting pattern can be made from a date. Certainly the 10th October has promise, but so do several others. Can you find them?

This is the second in our mini series on practising mental addition. This page looks at pairs of numbers that make 60. There are 8 snappy questions followed by a task to find all the pairs of odd numbers that make 60. Not too long as there are only 15 pairs of odd numbers!

If children can work out these 2-digit additions ‘in their head’ it gives them a great deal of confidence when working with larger numbers, so the practice is well worthwhile.

Revise adding to 60

Many Year 6 children are not as confident as they should be with multiplication and with decimals. This week we are publishing a straightforward maths worksheet which looks at multiplying 2-digit numbers by 1 digit, with decimals.

This should be tackled in exactly the same way as multiplication without decimals, but don’t forget to put in the decimal point. Occasionally you will find children who see the  decimal point as a block and will answer a question such as 2.6 x 4 as 8.24

Revise multiplying decimals (1)

Many Year 6 children are not as confident as they should be with multiplication and with decimals so we will be publishing a straightforward maths worksheet which looks at multiplying 2-digit numbers by 1 digit, with decimals.

We will also have the second in our mini series on practising mental addition for Year 4 children. This page looks at pairs of numbers that make 60. There are 8 snappy questions followed by a task to find all the pairs of odd numbers that make 60.

Sometimes it’s useful to have a page that tests how quickly children can respond to a set of questions – and next week we have a Year 4 maths worksheet which looks at addition and subtraction of whole tens. There are 30 questions and children who have a good grasp of adding single digits should be able to transfer their skills and answer these quite quickly.

Doubling 2-digit numbers can be quite easy or fairly tricky; it all depends on the numbers. For a number such as 23, doubling is easy as the tens and units can be doubled in your head in either order and can be easily remembered.

However, doubling 37 leads to more complex mathematical thinking as at least three separate operations are needed to reach the correct answer. Probably the easiest way is to double the 30 to make 60. Holding 60 in the back of your mind add the 7 to make 67 and then add the 7 again to make 74. Another way is to double the 30 to make 60 and then double the 7 to make 14 and then add the 60 and the 14 to make 74.

There are other ways, including doubling 40 to make 80 and taking 6 away (double 3) to reach 74. It is always a good idea to see how children tackle these types of questions, ask them what they did and see if it is an efficient way.

Doubles 1

Reading and writing fractions remain a bit of a mystery for many children, but our cunning foxes can help. This worksheet looks at how to read and write fractions from halves to tenths using numbers or words.  As well as reading a fraction such as 1/3 as one third, it can also be read as a division sum: 1 divided by 3, or 1 divided into 3 equal parts, but this comes a little later.

These pages can be found in our Year 4 section, under Counting and Numbers.

Writing fractions in words or numbers

Here is a snappy little worksheet to check that children can add on from 2-digit numbers to make 50. There are several different mental strategies that can be used, but the most efficient is usually to count on to the next whole ten and then count on in tens to 50.

Watch out for a common error whereby children add on to make 10 and then add on again from the original tens number; this will give them a total 10 more than is correct.

Revise adding to 50

Here we have another in our series of rounding larger numbers to the nearest million. This page looks in particular at the world’s oceans and the numbers involved have already been rounded to the nearest 1 000 sq km.

Children need to be confident when dealing with larger numbers, but this will only happen if they are secure in their knowledge of place value and how to read and write numbers. It may well be worth going back over this before attempting rounding.

Round to million  (oceans)

We will also be publishing a snappy little worksheet to check that children can add on from 2-digit numbers to make 50. There are several different mental strategies that can be used, but the most efficient is usually to count on to the next whole ten and then count on in tens to 50.

Doubling 2-digit numbers can be quite easy or fairly tricky; it all depends on the numbers, so look out for a page on doubling next week.

Many children still need plenty of practice with adding and subtracting small numbers mentally. Here is a nifty way to give practice in subtracting a single digit from a teen in a slightly different way from the usual questions.Suitable for bright year 2 or year 3 children.

The second page shows a blank grid which can be printed out and your own choice of numbers put in – useful for children with particular problems with subtraction.

These pages can be found in our Year 3, Know Number facts section

Subtract from a teen