What is it?

With World Maths Day coming up on 1 March, “Calculation Strategies” is a collection of useful and time-saving maths resources to practise mental arithmetic and generate worksheets and games.

How to use it

If you need a visual representation of numbers, there are several interactive whiteboard activities available, uploaded by TES i-board. In Visual Numbers, children choose a number by clicking in the box at the bottom, then by clicking on the arrow: the digit will be represented by beads, split into units and tens. This helps younger pupils put numbers into order and compare their values. For a simple counting activity, there is another interactive whiteboard resource, Flying Parrots, where pupils can track parrots flying from one tree to another. They can count them on each tree, add the total on the two trees and make them fly randomly across from one to the other - with fun bird noises while they do it.

For early multiplication lessons, there is a huge array of interactive whiteboard activities. Repeated Sets shows bags of apples and bananas, and asks pupils to calculate what the total will be for a certain number of bags. Children can click on the number of sets they want for each fruit, reveal the answer, and a friendly gorilla will show them the correct number of baskets with the portions of fruit requested.

To help pupils find their own calculation strategies, chriscrispus has uploaded I Do It My Way, two booklets for Primary 3 to 4 and 5 to 6 which show different ways to add, multiply, subtract and divide, with clear examples and space for working out.

Where to find it

Go to www.tes.co.ukcalculation-strategies for all of these resources and more.