KS2, Starter

This Mental & Oral starter is based on an idea from John Taylor’s book JumpStart! Numeracy.

The focus is on using shortcuts to quickly add and subtract 9 and 8 mentally. For our version you will need a set of coloured cards. Scraps of paper or even post it notes will do. We used blue and yellow paper squares. You need enough so that half of the class (or group) can  have one colour and the other half the remaining colour. Read more »

In our previous mental and oral suggestion (Mental Monday #12) we focussed on calculation. That activity involved displaying a grid of numbers and challenging the children to choose numbers to solve specific problems. Read more »

With this week’s mental and oral starter idea we are thinking about counting on (and counting back) and place value.

Like most of our other suggestions this can very easily be adapted to suit the needs of your children, which means it could be used with Early Years right up to Key Stage 3. We have also found that it adds a renewed level of interest and enthusiasm to ‘counting on’. Read more »

This time we offer a Mental and Oral activity which focusses on using a specific strategy to give addition a speed boost.

This teaching activity enables children to gain confidence in reordering the numbers of an addition problem to make that problem easier. The focus is on looking for pairs which create a specific total.

You show an addition problem like this one: Read more »

This is a perfect introductory activity, particularly effective when children can work together on mini whiteboards.

As before, print out the file and cut each page into separate strips - each containing one written problem. Give each child a problem slip, and ask the pair to take it in turns to read the maths problem and discuss how it could be attacked. Read more »