New resources: English spelling lists

Great news this week as we launch more of our English worksheets for the lower primary age range. Firstly, there are a set of word lists which can be used to help prepare children for the words they will encounter on the Letters and Sounds pages already published. There are...

Mental arithmetic for Years 4, 5 and 6

Tricky question for you today! How would you do 15 x 8 in your head? Think carefully of the process you went through to find the answer. One way is to double 15 to make 30 and then multiply 30 by 4 to make 120. Or I could multiply 8...

Year 6 Mental Arithmetic: Sets 9 and 10

The next two sets of ten mental arithmetic questions are now available. This week the questions concentrate on decimals and fractions and cover a number of important concepts, including: a. Dividing pounds and pence by 10. For example, £4.60 divided by ten is £0.46 or 46 pence. The easiest way...

Year 1 maths worksheet: Position

A concept which we tend to take for granted is the idea of position, but it is still something that many children need to be taught. On these worksheets the three dolphins need to be coloured according to the clues given. The clues use a range of positional vocabulary, such...

The Ancient Egyptian method of multiplying

In year 6 most children will be familiar with the standard written method of multiplication which depends on a good knowledge of times tables, or multiplication tables. The Ancient Egyptians hadn't quite worked out 'times tables' so that they had to use a different method of multiplying which involves 'decomposing'...

Year 6 mental arithmetic: Sets 7 and 8

This week's mental arithmetic questions for Year 6 are all about fractions. They are looking mainly at equivalent fractions and checking that children know that: 1. there are two quarters in a half 2. there are ten tenths in one whole one 3. to find two tenths of a number,...