Published today are our latest sets of mental arithmetic questions for Years 4, 5 and 6. The Year 4 questions concentrate on time, angle, addition and subtraction. The first two questions are working out days of the week, which is usually done by 'counting on'. The second question is harder as it needs a knowledge of the number of days in a month. Children are introduced to degrees for measuring angle in Year 4. it is important to get across the idea that angle is a measurement of turn and that 90 degrees is a right angle. The Year 5 questions concentrate purely on addition and subtraction. Again, it is worthwhile discussing how things are worked out, 'in our heads'. For example, the first question; 'What is 36 + 49?', I would do by adding 50 and subtracting 1. The Year 6 questions are all about percentages and decimals. Children need to know that finding 10% of an amount is equivalent to dividing the amount by 10. They also need to know that 50% is half of an amount and 25% is a quarter. Knowing these facts will allow them to work out most shop 'offers'. Watch out also for some tricky addition of decimals. Go to Year 4 mental arithmetic Go to Year 5 mental arithmetic Go to Year 6 mental arithmetic