Supporting your child in problem solving

Aims of the evening:

• To explain the process of problem solving in the primary school and the vocabulary used.

• To explain the links between problem solving, reasoning and communicating.

• To suggest ways of helping and supporting your child with maths at home.

Children as problem solvers• From well before school age children solve

problems• In EYFS they are encouraged to solve real

life problems• As they move through the school it is

important they continue to solve problems for application of skills and motivation.

• In later life, both at home and in work, problem solving is important.

What kind of problems?

• Not just word problems• Real situations, or simulations of them

(parties, trips, sharing pizza etc)• Puzzles and artificial mathematical

situations

What qualities do we want to grow in children?

• Confidence• Risk taking• Curiosity• Perseverance

The process

The skills• Smash it into smaller pieces• Draw a diagram• Try a simpler case• Make a list/table• Look for a pattern• Trial and improvement• Be systematic• Act it out

Your turn!

• If you shook hands with everyone in your group, how many handshakes would that be? What if there were one person more/fewer? Can you find a pattern?

What if you changed the problem slightly...• For instance if everyone in your group sent

a Christmas card to everyone else in the group, how many cards would be sent in total?

• How about if everyone clinked glasses instead of shaking hands?

Which of the skills did you use?

• Smash it into smaller pieces• Draw a diagram• Try a simpler case• Make a list• Look for a pattern• Trial and improvement• Be systematic• Act it out

How many triangles can you see?

• http://www.transum.org/Software/sw/Starter_of_the_day/Starter_September23.asp

•

Which of the skills did you use?

• Smash it into smaller pieces• Draw a diagram• Try a simpler case• Make a list• Look for a pattern• Trial and improvement• Be systematic• Act it out

What questions help?

• Where do you think you could start?• Have you seen anything like this before?• How will you keep track of what you’ve

done?• How many different ways can you...?• What if...?

Bipods and tripods

• Bipods have 2 legs and tripods 3.• If you see 23 legs, how many bipods and

tripods might there be?• Is there more than one answer?• Have you found all the ways?• Can you convince me you have found all

the ways?

Higher order thinking skills

• Proof• Generalisation• Prediction• Evaluation

Helping your child

• Be curious and fascinated by maths in the real world and in puzzles – seek them out.

• Listen to your child, collaborate with your child, be interested in their fascinations.

• Thinking games such as traffic jam and traditional strategy games such as chess and backgammon all build the key skills of perseverance.

Starting young• How could we...?• Have we enough?• What comes next? How do you know?• How many ways are there? What’s the

best way to..?• Build the tallest....• Make a pattern• Who has the longest name/widest smile,

largest hand....

An excellent website which the school uses is nrich maths. There are many resources there for children to use at home.

http://nrich.maths.org/frontpage