Maths skills for ages 7–9
Using maths skills and knowledge
Your child is now becoming increasingly fluent with mental calculations such as addition and subtraction facts and times tables. These ideas will help your child practise these skills in everyday life, and to learn to apply their maths skills and understanding.
Things to try with your child
1. Make and do together
Use maths together at home. Most craft and DIY activities involve maths skills like measuring, calculating, understanding shapes and angles, multiplying, dividing, and so on. Model making, sewing and decorating are great for developing your child’s understanding and confidence. Perhaps your child would like to try making some simple clothes for a toy, or their own cardboard box mini-theatre?
Prepare a meal together and ask your child to multiply or divide the quantities of ingredients in a recipe so it makes the right amount for your family. Can they measure all the ingredients and talk about grams, kilograms etc? Help your child to work out at what time things need to stop cooking.
Want to try a tasty recipe? Try these jam tarts >
2. Play games together
When you are out and about together, try playing simple verbal maths games. Spot a number plate and think of a calculation using those numbers. Ask the other person to work it out, or tell them the answer and see if they can work out the calculation. Or, have a quick round of ‘One Minute Brain Teasers’. There are also lots of games you can make or adapt at home, like bingo, snap and pairs with numbers, e.g. where you have to match a maths question to an answer. Games that involve racing, throwing, scoring, etc, will all build your child’s maths skills, as they often involve measuring, comparing, addition and subtraction.
Try these One Minute Brain Teasers and times table activity sheets:
One Minute Brain Teasers
Help your child practise a maths skill with a quick-fire game of one minute brain teasers.
You'll find more times tables activities on our help with times tables page >
3. Out and about
There are lot of opportunities to help your child with maths when you are out and about. Ask for your child’s help in adding up the shopping bill and working out change. Comparing prices, keeping a record of what you’ve spent and weighing food are all things that your child may be able to help with.
Help your child to look out for and spot different shapes in the world around them. Remind them of the names for 2D and 3D shapes. Do they know that a football is a sphere, or that most tins of food are cylinders?
Want to play some games involving shapes? Try these:
4. Have fun with fractions
Cake, pizza, or any foods with a regular shape can help children understand what fractions are and how they work. Ask your child questions like, 'If I cut our cake into 8 pieces, what fraction will each piece be?' Foods that people might eat a few of are good for helping your child to understand how to find fractions of amounts: 'We've 12 fish fingers in the packet. There are 4 of us. What fraction of the fish fingers can we each have? How many fish fingers would that be?'
Want to try an activity involving fractions? Try Cupcake Fractions and Fraction Match.
5. Use charts and tables
Using and talking about simple charts and tables, like reward charts, timetables, or calendars, will help your child get used to how they work. Help them to make their own table or chart to gather information, e.g. the performance of a sports team, or the favourite pop groups in their class. Encourage your child to plan or record their own activities, as this will also help them to become familiar with creating and using charts and tables themselves.
Want to practise using tables and charts? Try these:
My Three Day Training Challenge
Get seriously good at your favourite sport and practise using graphs with different scales.
My Weekly Training Plan
Practise using tables and adding amounts of time with this weekly training plan.
6. Play maths games
Try these fun games with your child to practise maths skills and help to build your child's confidence. Most children love playing games and it's an easy way to support their learning.
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Visit our fun maths activities page for a selection of activities and resources designed to help you enjoy maths with your child.