"How can I help my child with maths at home?"

With over 20 years experience of primary school teaching, we understand how important it is for parents to be actively involved in a child's education.

Oakfield Learning has created this extensive 'Guide for Parents' to provide a list of top tips, resources and ideas that could be used to support children at home with maths.  

From traditional methods such as board games and storybooks, to more modern alternatives like apps, videos and technology, we hope you discover lots of positive, fun and engaging ways to help your child grow in confidence and understanding in order to master the maths curriculum.

For more detailed information and support  about maths in each year group (including tutorial videos), please see our 'Maths Curriculum By Age' section or please click on the relevant link below:

Maths Curriculum in EYFS

Maths Curriculum in Key Stage One

  Year 1 & Year 2

Maths Curriculum in Key Stage Two:  

Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 & Year 6

Maths Curriculum in KS3 

• TOP TIPS TO HELP YOUR CHILD WITH MATHS
• Online Videos and Tutorials
• Great maths board games for off-line family fun
• Maths Storybooks
• Useful Maths Websites
• How Can the Echo Dot Kids Help With Maths?
• How Does Amazon Alexa Support Maths Learning?
• 10 Alexa Skills to Help Children with Maths 
• How can the Amazon Fire Kids Tablets Help with Maths?
• 10 Apps to Help Children with Maths
• How can Amazon Kids Help with Maths at Home?
• How Does Numberblocks Teach Early Maths Skills to Children?

City of Zombies is a cooperative game for 1 to 6 players who must team up and help each other to survive.  

To play the game, each player takes it in turn to roll 3 Battle Dice, they can then add, subtract, multiply and divide dice together which creates attack combinations to get rid of the Zombies. 

City of Zombies helps children of all levels practise maths without them realising it.  It even introduces them to squares and square roots (which children don't learn about until they are aged 9-10 in Year 5).

 The game rewards players with more ways to win as their maths skills improve.

The suggested age for this product is 5+ however we feel it may be more suited to children aged 7+.

Crew in a Stew is a really fun way to practise and memorise times tables.

In this family card games,  in order to win players need to be the first to assemble a pirate crew by rolling both dice and multiplying the numbers. mastering times tales easy through fun filled play with this family card game.  Be the first to assemble a pirate crew. 

There are some fun complications through rat infestations (this can be helped by getting a cat!), schemes to disrupt your crew, fighting a duel, walk the plank or avoid being sunk.

This would be a good game to play with children aged 8-9 to help them to prepare for the Multiplications Table Check (MTC) in Year 4.

Numbalee® is a game designed to improve maths and numeracy skills through play.  There are 13 different games that can be played by children aged 6+ with 150 durable plastic number tiles to improve skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division .   The game comes in a zip-up travel pouch with three 12-sided maths dice and five maths action counters.

Wallop is made by the same creator as Numberlee, where players throw and match dice and can challenge others to see who can throw the best combinations and win.

We feel this game would be suitable for children aged 6+

Many children love David Walliams stories and this maths game uses 48 cards each featuring illustrations from the best-selling Gangsta Granny book to help children practise their mental skills by adding subtracting or multiplying numbers to get the highest score.

The manufacturers age recommendation is 5+, however younger children may need a little help as multiplication is only introduced in Year 1 but children aged 6+ in Year 2 may be able to play more independently. 

Brainbox Maths contains hundreds of maths questions that can be played in as little as 5 or 10 minutes but with Solo or Family play, and not two games being the same, it could be played for much longer.

The game (designed by a primary school teacher) reinforces concepts being taught in classrooms following the National Curriculum using 55 game cards with 440 individual questions.  Players need to be able to recall facts within a ten second time limit.

Suitable for children age 8+

Sum Fun won two gold awards at the Imagination Gaming Family & Education Awards in 2018.  It is a little like a maths crossword which uses white number/digit tiles and blue mathematical symbol cards.  In order to win the game, the tiles must be used up by creating sums which must be connecting and intersecting.  

Unlike many other games which involve taking turns, in Sum Fun each player makes their own sums independently to the other.  Players can rearrange their own sums in order to help to create new opportunities to place new ones.   The winner is the person who uses up all their tiles first.

We would suggest this game is more suitable for children aged 6+.

This award winning family board game for children is a fun way of reinforcing addition and subtraction.  Children roll the dice to move over the board using the crocodile shortcut and the endless loop.  The winner is the player who gets to the finish first.

The recommended age for this game is 5-9 year olds, however as the numbers are only 1-6 it may be more suited to 5-7 year olds.

This is another game made for younger children aged 5-7 to help them to practise number bonds to ten which is taught in Year 1.

The game is straightforward to play.  Children are given cards and they need to call out “I Sea 10!” when they find any cards that add up to make ten with two or more cards e.g. 7 + 3 or 5 + 4 + 1.  Those cards are then kept to make a set and the player who collects the most sets wins but if a player is unlucky in flipping over a shark card they have to put all their pieces back.

Dino math track place value game for 204 players that reinforces counting, place value, addition and subtraction using dinosaur shaped counters along a place value track.

 Players roll all four cubes at the same time and then put them into the place value box to determine their number.  

The winner is the player to get all of their dinosaurs under the rainbow bridge.

If your child loves dinosaurs this may be a great way to get them learning maths.

Players take turns to solve the sums and fill their boards with yucky spell ingredients, from worm-infested cupcakes to brains and bogies! 

Children will love using the magical rub and reveal patches on the back of the cards to reveal if their answer is correct.

Magic Maths won a Gold award in the prestigious Made for Mums parenting awards in 2017.

Magic Maths has been designed specifically for KS1, incorporating a wide range of sums including addition, subtraction and multiplication for a more challenging game.

As children are only first introduced to multiplication in Year 1, this game may be more suited to children aged 6+

Prime Climb is a colourful game involving problem solving and strategy designed for older mathematicians aged 10+ to master multiplication and division.

Monopoly is a great board game for all the family for teaching the concept of money, pounds and pence, counting change.  There are junior editions available for so children can play from the ages of 5+

 This family favourite is a fun way to reinforce addition.  To play the game the 5 dice are rolled to make combinations to make the highest total score on the score sheet.

A number tile game that involves sequences, patterns and addition.

Dominoes are great for teaching subitising, especially when they have coloured dots for easy recognition

A great family favourite for counting on (adding) and counting back (subtracting) as well as subitising and recognising numbers. 

There are so many maths skills that can be developed using Uno cards.

For EYFS children aged 3-5 use UNO cards for simple number recognition.  Turn over a card and then ask children to use beads, pegs, counters or other objects to represent that number.  For example if the  number 4 is turned over, children need to put 4 objects on top of the card.

Uno cards can also be used in similar ways to playing cards.

There are so many card games that use mental skills such as addition and subtraction.    

SOME COMMON CARD GAMES

• Snap can help with number recognition. 
• Rummy can help with number recognition and understanding of sequencing and consecutive numbers
• Patients/solitaire - Sequencing and consecutive numbers 
• Pontoon - reinforces addition of numbers to make 21.

Playing cards, Uno cards and Rummikub tiles can also be used like place value cards. 

PLACE VALUE GAME  

If using a deck of cards take out the picture cards (Kings, Queens and Jacks) and leave the Aces to have a value of one.  Give the children some cards and ask them to make the largest or smallest number possible.  This could be a two player or group game where the winner is the player who can make the highest or lowest number.  This game involves ordering and comparing numbers.

For example children could have the cards 3,6,4,1.  The smallest number would be 1346 and the largest number would be 6431.  More or less cards could be used to increase or decrease the amount of place values.

NUMBER BATTLES

Practice making products (multiplying two numbers together) or sums (adding two numbers together).  A deck of playing cards, uno cards or Rummikub tiles could be dealt between two players.  Each puts a card/tile face up on the table at the same time.  The winner is the player who correctly shouts out the sum or product of the two numbers.  

E.g. 2 and 3 (product is 2 x 3 = 6 but sum is 2 + 3 = 5).

These card 'battles' could be extended with using subtraction as this may result in calculating negative numbers e.g. 5 and 6.  6-5 = 1 but 5 - 6 = -1

The battles could also be adjusted with playing cards to suit age or ability by adding or removing the Jacks (11), Queens (12) or Kings(13).

Storybooks are great ways to inspire children and help them to love maths and learn mathematical concepts and language without realising it!  

It is important that the book contains an great plot with engaging illustrations to help the children visualise the mathematical context and understand how the characters use maths in everyday context to problem solve.

Here are 15 of our favourites.

There are so many more wonderful maths story books to discover:

FIND MORE HERE*

You may also be interested to read this article by the NCETM (National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Maths)

USING MATHS STORYBOOKS TO ENGAGE CHILDREN

One is a snail, two is a person..

This is book which teaches number sense to 100 through counting feet of various animals and insects.

Suitable for children aged 3-5

Another great books for counting to 100 is Centipede's 100 Shoes by Tony Ross.

A family mysteriously has one penguin delivered each day for a year which at first seem very cute but as they pile up begin to cause problems.

We love the diversity of this book.  We used it for a whole school  maths day as the same story can teach maths concepts from EYFS to Year 6:

Time, ordering numbers, estimating and predicting, addition and multiplication patterns, odd and even, sorting and sharing, money. 

Suitable for children aged 5-11

Children aged 4-6 will enjoy this rhythmical book full of wonderful illustrations.  A boy awakens to a very 'odd' world full of shirts with three sleeves, odd pairs of shoes and dogs with five legs!

Why not have your own 'odd' themed day?

Zero lives in Digitaria but as he has nothing to add he doesn't feel he has a place there especially when playing the game Addemup with his friends.  However through his search for King Multiplus he realises that multiplication may be just what he needs.

This books is filled with play on words to help children understand the value of 0.

Suitable for children aged 6-9.

This is a beautiful storybook which helps an inquisitive little penguin work out how big a million really is through counting penguins and snowflakes.

This is another great story for helping children aged 6+ to understand the size of numbers and learn estimation skills based on counting jellybeans.

A fun activity to do alongside this would be to guess how many jellybeans are in this jar*? https://amzn.to/3tZfyci

Another fun book for teaching measurement and estimation is 

How Much Does A Ladybird Weigh?

What does a little ladybird weigh? A snail? A swan? In this extraordinary picture book children are introduced to a fascinating world of wildlife, weight, numbers, and comparisons. Did you know that five starlings weigh the same as one squirrel - or that three rabbits weigh the same as one fox cub? We didn't until we read this!

This is a sequel to 'One Odd Day'.  A boy wakes up to another peculiar day where this time everything is even, including a mum with two heads!

Just like the first book, the children will love looking at the wonderful illustrations and finding all the hidden objects.

This book would be perfect for 4-6 year olds learning about odd and even numbers.

You will start to notice how many objects in everyday life come in evens!

A funny story to introduce the concept of prime numbers to children aged 9-10.

Ralph and Flora are stuck with unlucky bean 13.  If they eat half of the beans each there is still one left over and if they invite a friend over they each could eat 4 beans but there would still be one bean left over.  How are they going to get rid of bean 13?

It may be fun for children to find more unlucky beans with some jellybeans left over from estimating 'How Many Jellybeans'!

Another book for teaching the concept of remainders is

A Remainder of One

Where an army of bugs are ordered to march in even lines but Private Joe keeps getting left out!

 Mouse and her friends want to play tug-of-war, but they'll need to use some everyday math to figure out how to make teams that are equal. As Mouse looks at various solutions she is not sure what it means to be equal. Nothing works until Mouse starts to think about it mathematically and divides the teams based on weight. 

This is a really fun book to use to teach the concept of measurement and problem solving.

When a valuable fraction goes missing, George Cornelius Factor (a.k.a. GCF) vows to track it down. Knowing that the villainous Dr. Brok likes to disguise his ill-begotten fractions, GCF invents a Reducer a tool that strips away the disguise, reducing the fraction and revealing its true form. Equal parts of action and humour add up to a wholly entertaining introduction to simplifying fractions.

This story teaches the concept of sharing and division through cookies.

The mother of two children makes some cookies which is plenty for them to share equally between them but then the doorbell rings and more children arrive.  Will there be enough cookies to share?

We think it would be great fun to actually bake some cookies or biscuits with the children as this is also great for teaching maths measurement.

Suitable for children aged 5-7

This skill is a fun number quiz game show hosted by Numberblock 6.  

There are two Numberblocks playlists for children to sing and dance along with.  

Each quiz has six questions to test the knowledge children have gained from watching the Numberblocks shows.  

As the quiz moves on, it does increase in difficulty.  The Numberblobs audience cheer along with the children as they win shiny stars when they get the right answer.  

If you subscribe to Amazon Kids+, children can join in with as many quizzes as they like every day.  

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT NUMBERBLOCKS

Practising tables can be more fun with technology.   

Times Table Battle is a multiplication game for children to play using Alexa Skills with two game playing modes: simple or battle.  

In the simple mode, the children are given times table questions and if they answer correctly, they are awarded points.  Over time, the questions get harder and will extend to the 20 x table.  Children may enjoy challenging Alexa to a battle where they have to be the first to give the answer. 

The maths monsters live on a mysterious island who protect buried treasure that is hidden there.  

To find the treasure and keep it, the children need to distract the Maths Monsters by answer times tables questions.  

This skill has been developed with schools.

In this app, children are given 7 maths questions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, ratios, percentages, etc.).   

If all 7 questions are answered correctly they will reach the summit of Math Mountain.  If they get any wrong answers, they lose the game.  

As the children climb up the mountain, the questions get harder but three lifelines are available to help.  

When they get to the top, children can get a place on the leader board.

This is a quick fire time tables challenge game.  

The game is started by stating which times table (from 1 to 12) that you want your child to be challenged on.  

Then once they have answered the questions they will find out how many correct answers they gave.  

This has been updated to include multiplication diagrams via an added display.  

This is an American app designed for children aged 5-11 which is divided in to three learning modules:

Number Sense (counting, place values, number patterns)

 Operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division; word & number problems), 

Measurement, Time, & Money (linear, volume, money, calendar, time). 

Each learning modules isdivided into units.  Every round of math exercises includes problems from more than one module. 

Problems feature a fun mix of animals (e.g., tarantulas, octopuses, penguins, & more) and objects (flashlights, alarm clocks, umbrellas, & more).

Suitable for children from foundation to Year 4, this app has a range of questions which cover the four operations with difficulty that matches the corresponding levels of the National Curriculum.

This maths skill challenges the children by asking them to guess two numbers that multiply and add up to certain numbers. For example:

What are two numbers multiply to 3 and add up 4? 

The answer is 3 and 1.

This skill is fun and great for practising mental arithmetic.

This skill finds factors of a given number. You can say "Alexa open maths factor and find factors of 24". 

There are many more Alexa skills available 

This app has been designed to be used at home or in the classroom.  

Each of the fun 1-minute maths tasks help young children build confidence and skill with number in bite-size and manageable chunks.  

It focuses on key maths skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and subitising.  

The range of topics can be chosen and if children are struggling, helpful hints will help them to keep trying.

In recent years, Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) has become increasingly popular.  It is now used in over 16,000 primary and secondary schools worldwide and has helped over 4 million children to learn their times tables through this carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice.  

The game can be played in single or multiplayer modes to practise times tables up to x20.  

Children enjoy customising their own Avatar which is their Rock alter ego and playing against their friends and classmates to see who is higher up on the leader board.  

This app relies on children having access to their login details which have been set up by their school.  However there is a family plan available for children who do not use TTRS at school.

This app has been designed by education experts and is loved by millions worldwide.  

Mathletics is the world's leading online mathematics program.  There are curriculum-aligned activities, videos, ebooks and more.  

Children are engaged through fun games such as Multiverse, Live Mathletics and Play Paws.

From the innovators who bring you Times Tables Rock Stars, comes a highly engaging platform for learning to add and subtract… NumBots!

NumBots is all about every child achieving the “triple win” of understanding, recall and fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so that they move from counting to calculating.    It uses images to help children visualise concepts featuring 60-second skills rounds and challenges.

Suitable for children aged 6+

This is a free introductory app which introduces children to the Numberblocks to develop their counting skills.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT NUMBERBLOCKS

This app features four game modes and five packs of cards offering 60 levels of different gameplay that will help you help your child with their numeracy skills. It features Numberblocks 1 to 10.  

● Snap - Find a snap when you see two cards with matching values, this could be Numberblock One and one Apple or numeral six and six Numberblobs. 

● Match - Turn over the cards to find matching pairs of card value. The values could be anything from a mix of things to stamps.  

● Add it up - A series of addition equations that feature different card packs and card values. You will be adding Numberblocks, Stamps, Things, Numberblobs and numerals.  

● Take it away - A series of subtraction equations that feature different card packs and card values. Children will add Numberblocks, Stamps, Things, Numberblobs and numerals.  When a level is completed a new one with increasing complexity will unlock. 

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT NUMBERBLOCKS

This app has been designed to help children to practise their number bonds to ten.  

In order to play the game, children need to tap on the Numberblocks when they pop out.  

After finding two Numberblocks they can drag them on top of each other to make ten.

This app gives access to the full series of all 90 Episodes presented in 5 different levels.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT NUMBERBLOCKS

This video app was made just for children. YouTube Kids was created to give children a more contained environment that makes it simpler and more fun for them to explore on their own, and easier for parents and caregivers to guide their journey as they discover new and exciting interests along the way. 

There is a wide range of entertainment and educational videos, including maths learning content.

This is a popular app mainly used in USA.  We thought we would add it to our list as it offered something a bit different to other maths apps.  

 It claims to 'Let math feel more like playing' as in the game, children will travel around the world while learning about and collecting over 80 fish.  

It develops maths skills such as addition, counting, multiplication, problem solving.  

It would really suit a child who is interested in the natural world, especially marine biology.  The game is part of the Osmo Genius Starter Kit for children ages 6-10. Children can develop confidence with numbers in a hands-on, interactive way.  They can play with physical Numbers Tiles, including dots and digits. 'Math' becomes fun when kids learn to solve problems in multiple ways. 

In addition to the apps in this list, there are hundreds of other educational apps available to download from the Amazon Appstore, many of which are free.