Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew
Title Page
How to Use This Book
Getting Started
Age Key
How to Talk Maths
1 Playing Dumb
2 Saying ‘Yet’
3 Think Aloud
4 Teach Me
5 You’ve Worked Hard!
6 Big Ego Arnold
7 Naughty Puppet
8 Scoring Points
Maths to Talk About
9 Spot the Deliberate Mistake
10 One-Word Parrot
11 How Long Until …?
12 Age Fractions
13 When Will You be Able to Buy Wayne Rooney?
14 Plan that Party
15 Dog Years
16 Would You Rather …?
17 Break Those Biscuits
18 Zequals
Investigation and Discovery
19 Fractional Relatives
20 Which is More?
21 I’ve Heard That …
22 Win a Fiver – By Drawing It!
23 Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
24 How Much Are You Worth?
25 Guess How Many
26 Paper Shapes
27 Just a Minute
28 How Many Ways?
29 Handful of Coins
Quick Games to Play Anywhere
30 Rock, Paper … Add!
31 Twenty
32 Times-Table Donk
33 Lip-Sync
34 Pat-a-Cake
35 Fizz Buzz
36 I Have a Secret Rule
37 Guess My Shape
38 Can You Find My Number?
39 Pointless Maths
40 Who Wants to be a Mathionaire?
41 Multiplying by Eleven
42 Finger Multiplication
Maths at Home
43 Graffiti Wall
44 Kitchen Clock
45 How Tall Are You Now?
46 How Many Feet?
47 Kids’ Darts
48 Upstairs Downstairs
49 Screen Time
50 What’s the Score?
Mealtimes
51 Cereal Count
52 Meeting the Deadline
53 Pizza Fractions
54 Wacky Quarters
55 Cutlery Challenge
56 Chatty Jar
Doing the Shopping
57 Supermarket Challenge
58 Deal or No Deal?
59 Child in a Sweet Shop
60 Robot Dad (or Mum)
61 The Big Count
On a Journey
62 Number Treasure Hunt
63 Are We There Yet?
64 How Many Wheels on That Wagon?
65 Pub Cricket
66 Green Light
67 Stuck at the Red Light
68 Higher or Lower?
69 Bike Helmets
70 One for a Sheep, Two for a Cow
71 How Fast Are We Going?
End of the Day
72 Water Play
73 Plot of the Day
74 Personal Pie Chart
75 Fred
76 Pyjama Countdown
77 Captain Correct
Games with Simple Props
78 Triple Snakes and Ladders
79 Attention!
80 Hit the Target
81 Three in a Row
82 Bean Grab
83 Solo Snap
84 Replica!
85 Bull’s Eye
86 Egg-Timer Challenge
Out and About
87 Hubcap and Manhole Geekery
88 Shortcut
89 How Many Bounces?
90 Discovering Parabolas
91 Seesaw Balance
92 Which Way is North?
93 How High is That?
94 How Far is That Chimney?
Maths Magic
95 Thought Control
96 Zoo Prediction
97 Age Magic
98 The Twisted Loop
99 Stacking Dice
100 Mirror Magic
101 Reverse and Add
Acknowledgements
Index by maths topic
Copyright
Maths for Mums and Dads
More Maths for Mums and Dads
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781473524019
Version 1.0
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
VINTAGE
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Square Peg is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
Copyright © Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew 2016
Illustration copyright © Del Thorpe
Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew have asserted their right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published by Square Peg in 2016
www.vintage-books.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9780224101622
This is a book full of games, activities and ideas for how to play with maths, to engage your child in mathematical thinking as part of your and their everyday lives. The ideas have been loosely grouped into themes to help you find useful ones quickly, though as you’ll see there are many that work just as well in the car as at the dinner table. To speed things further, there is an index at the back so you can look up ideas by maths topic (how can I help my child with times tables?).
Most of the ideas work best with children aged five to eleven. Beyond eleven hormones start to kick in, and even if you already have a strong track record of ‘playing’ maths with your child, you’re going to meet increasing resistance as they enter secondary school, and the way you do it will have to be correspondingly subtle and sophisticated.
Five to eleven is a wide range. Obviously, most eleven year-olds will find routine counting games a little beneath them, and five year-olds will be baffled by challenges involving times tables, but many activities can be adapted to the age and aptitude of your child. Each activity has a key to indicate the age range for which it is likely to work best, but this is no more than a guideline. (See the key here.)
As a rule, the younger the child the more enthusiastic and accepting they are. An announcement like ‘Hey, let’s see if we can find an odd number!’ generally works with five year-olds, and not with someone twice their age (‘Give it a rest, Mum.’).
One of the best ways we’ve found of engaging children older than ten is when they have a younger sibling or relative. It’s often possible to try one of the maths ideas in the book on the younger child, but making sure that the older one is listening in (this is particularly effective when sitting around the table for a meal). The older child, while pretending to be too cool for this stuff, will quietly be taking it all in, and will often end up joining in – it’s a chance for them to demonstrate their superior knowledge.
There are more ideas here than you are ever likely to use – some will fit your style more than others. Play to your strengths, and to your child’s interests. Obsessed with football? Sport is great for mental arithmetic (What’s the Score? here). Minecraft addicts? Get them to calculate their screen time (here). But do be prepared to try ideas out even if they don’t immediately grab your interest. Although it’s ideal to have maths activities that you and your child both enjoy, you might be surprised to find your child having fun with things that don’t appeal to you, and their enjoyment might even be contagious.
Everything we’ve suggested here is meant to be entertaining, and should be done with a smile.
But however much fun you have, we would strongly encourage you not to overdo it. Some parents manage to seamlessly squeeze in a mathematical idea every time they go on an outing, but your child may well spot you attempting to crowbar in some maths when they aren’t in the mood, and the last thing you want is for them to start resisting.
Some of the ideas we’ve suggested tend to work better when you don’t make them all about maths. The more that children experience maths as a natural part of everyday life, the less likely it is that, as teenagers, they will ask that heart-sinking question: ‘When am I ever going to need this?’
Before launching into doing maths, it can help to have a few items in place that make it much easier to be spontaneous. There aren’t many things in our list, and you probably have most of them to hand already, but it makes a big difference always keeping a pack of playing cards (for example) in a convenient drawer, rather than having to search around the house to find one. The following are useful:
Paper and a pencil
Scissors and sticky tape
Playing cards
An analogue clock
A digital clock
Dice
An egg timer
A tape measure
A jar of dried beans or other countable items
A calculator (your phone probably has one on it)
As a guide, we’ve provided a key for each activity suggesting which ages it is best suited to. Some activities can work (with a bit of adapting) for everyone, but others are much more age specific, for example because they are based on more sophisticated maths knowledge.
all ages
three to four year-olds (Pre-school, Reception)
five to six year-olds (Year 1/2)
seven to eight year-olds (Year 3/4)
nine to ten year-olds (Year 5/6)
eleven plus year-olds (Year 6+)
So: 
means this activity is best suited to seven to ten year-olds.
Talking maths with your children can feel a bit forced so here are some tips to help you incorporate maths ideas into everyday conversation without making it sound like a lesson. The secret is to keep discussions about maths as light and playful as possible.
Need some help with addition? Play a game of Salute
Having trouble with times tables? Try Times Table Donk
Floundering with fractions? Get creative cutting up the toast with your kids at breakfast
Busy mums or dads are crying out for quick and easy ways to help their children with primary school maths and beyond. Here are 101 simple tips, games and activities to make practising maths as engaging and enjoyable as possible, for you and your child. All can be incorporated into the everyday routine – at home and on the go – with minimal fuss and no expensive kit – helping children have fun with numbers. Indeed, most of the time they won’t even realise that maths is involved. Sneaky!
Areas covered include, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions, ratio and proportion, telling the time, estimation, measurement, geometry and shapes, with an emphasis on problem solving throughout.
Rob Eastaway has written several bestselling books that connect maths with everyday life, including Why do Buses Come in Threes?, the bestselling Maths for Mums and Dads for parents with primary schoolchildren, and More Maths for Mums and Dads for parents with teenage children. He appears regularly on the radio and has given talks about maths across the UK to audiences of all ages, at locations ranging from the Royal Exchange Theatre to Pentonville Prison. Married with three children, he lives in south London.
Mike Askew is Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Until recently he was Professor of Primary Education at Monash University, Melbourne and previously Professor of Mathematics Education at King’s College, University of London. A former primary school teacher, he now researches, speaks and writes on teaching and learning primary mathematics. For the Academic year 2006/07 he was Visiting Distinguished Scholar at City College, City University New York. He is also a skilled magician.
Helps with: Building your child’s confidence, particularly when doing money calculations.