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Maths

Year 1/2 Maths Mental-Oral Starters

By Ruth Merttens - 5 Jul 2018

Get your maths lesson going with a bang!

Each term, we provide 48 starters – enough for 4 per week for 12 weeks – plus 3 sets of 12 ‘Fun-Fair Friday’ tests.
Starters are categorised under key mathematical skillssee headings below.
ALL starters in Counting, Exploring place value and Addition & Subtraction are FREE to download. Others are only available to Friends and School subscribers.
In each download, expect starters further down the list to get slightly harder. Most starters include a couple of quite challenging questions!
Starters with an E at the end of the download filename are easier, as they revisit skills from previous years or terms.

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Counting *FREE*
Confident counting on and back in 1s and in bigger steps

Children count on or back in 1s, being able to say the next number (one more) or the number before (one less) than any given number. They also rehearse counting in steps of 2, 5, 10 and 3. Counting in these larger steps will aid progress toward recall of multiplication facts (see Getting to know multiples and times tables below).

Autumn: Count on or back in 1s (5) | Count in steps of 2, 5, 10 and 3 (5)
Spring: Count on or back in 1s (4) | Count in steps of 2, 5, 10 and 3 (5)
Summer: Count on or back in 1s (3) | Count in steps of 2, 5, 10 and 3 (4)

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Exploring Place Value *FREE*
Partitioning in 10s and 1s; comparing and ordering

Children partition 2-digit numbers into tens and ones. They read numbers, recombining the parts. They compare numbers and place them in order. Finally, they place and identify numbers on a number track, a 1-100 grid (or on sections taken from it) and number line. Money amounts are partitioned and recombined in Summer.

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Addition and subtraction *FREE*
Number bonds and pairs; unit patterns in addition and subtraction

Children rehearse number bonds to 10, applying this to add to the next multiple of 10. They recall addition and subtraction facts for 7, 8 and 9, then 17, 18 and 19. They recognise and identify unit patterns, using these to develop fluency in mental addition and subtraction.
In Spring, children apply number bonds to add to the next multiple of 10 and count on in 10s and 1s to add amounts of money. In Summer, they rehearse counting back in 1s or 10s to subtract.
Calculating with amounts of money is introduced in Spring, consolidating learning of place value skills as well as addition and subtraction.

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Doubling, halving and fractions
Doubling numbers to 20, halving even numbers less than 40, finding fractions of amounts

Children rehearse known facts, e.g. double 6 is 12 and half of 18 is 9. They need to ensure fluency, recognising the simple doubles such as double 3, and identifying numbers that are easy to halve, such as 6. In two Autumn downloads, numbers are represented with coins to support understanding and to apply place value.
Beginning in Spring and consolidating in Summer, children calculate or recall simple unit fractions of amounts, supported by whole-part images. In Summer, they also calculate 2/3 and 3/4 of amounts.

Autumn: Double and halve numbers (3)
Spring: Double and halve (2) | Fractions of amounts (2)
Summer: Double and halve (2) | Fractions of amounts (2)

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Getting to know multiples and times tables
Count in 2s, 10s and 5s; recall x and ÷ facts for 2, 3, 5 and 10x tables

Autumn starters combine practice of ‘clever counting’ in steps of 2, 5 and 10. In this way, children begin to recognise patterns of multiples. To encourage application of digit patterns, counts may go forward or back and beyond the 12th multiple. The 3x table is introduced in Autumn – mainly for Y2 – but Y1 may also enjoy trying to recall these facts. In Spring and Summer, children apply skills to collect sets of multiples and to write multiplication and division number sentences.

Autumn: Clever counting and tables facts (5)
Spring: Clever counting; tables (5)
Summer: Clever counting, tables and multiples (6)

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Measures
Money, coin recognition, and telling the time

In Autumn, children become familiar with the full range of coins, practising swift and confident identification. In Spring and beyond, use of money is embedded in other skills: Exploring place value; Addition and subtraction.
Children rehearse telling and making times to the hour and half hour on analogue clocks in Autumn, then by Summer are confidently telling the time to the quarter hour.

Autumn: Coin recognition (2) | Tell the time (2)
Spring: Tell the time (2)
Summer: Tell the time (2)

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FUN-FAIR FRIDAY TESTS
Testing children’s basic skills rehearsed in Starters

The tests each have ten questions and are fun to do as children compete not against each other, but against their PB (personal best). Each week, they see where they have got to on the Fun-Fair Height Chart – which rides will they be able to do?
Choose a test to fit the Starters you have done this week. Download the Tests Overview to make your choice.