Your child may know Maths but understanding methods is the key to boosting confidence and absolutely loving the subject! There are some amazing maths tricks out there to puzzle and delight!
Fractions, Decimals and Percentages
A few helpful strategies to start you off:
The image below explains how to convert a fraction to a decimal and to turn a decimal into a percentage.
The problem asks what fraction of the cake is left once Jacob and Shane eat their portion.
- The first step is to find the lowest common multiple, which is 15; this has been done by multiplying Jacob’s numbers by 3 and Shane’s by 5.
- The fraction is then expressed as a decimal and rounded to 3 decimal places.
- The rounded answer is then multiplied by 100 to make a percentage.
Highest common factor
- An easy way to find the HCF is by creating a factor tree; start with the lowest prime numbers which can be multiplied together to make the branched number.
- As shown below, the prime numbers which are common in both factor trees are 2 and 3.
- These are then multiplied together to obtain the HCF which is 6.
Ratios
This problem shows you a recipe for 8 biscuits. It asks us how much of each ingredient is needed to make 6.
- The first step would be to find the proportion needed to make 2 biscuits. Remember the rule: whatever calculation you do to one , you must apply to all.
- The next step is to multiply 2 by 3 to find ingredients for 6. Again, whatever calculation you do to one, you must apply to all.
- Your final result would be the ingredients for 6 biscuits
Venn diagram
A Venn diagram uses circles that overlap or don’t overlap to show the commonalities and differences among things or groups of things. Things that have commonalities are shown as overlapping circles while things that are distinct stand alone. The number(s) that fall outside the circle do not belong to any of the groups.
We hope this blog helps you. Let us know if you’d like to see more methods.
