Lesson Plan - Mental Maths Made Easy: Secrets, Shortcuts, and Smart Thinking
Elective Home Education (EHE) gives you the freedom to shape learning around your child’s interests, pace, and unique way of thinking. Our Mental Maths Made Easy: Secrets, Shortcuts, and Smart Thinking lesson plan is designed to support this flexible approach. It offers a structured but adaptable resource that helps learners build confidence with numbers. The plan includes reading tasks, discussion questions, creative activities, and extension ideas — giving you plenty of ways to explore this vital and useful topic.
This lesson plan is a starting point, not a strict set of rules. One of the joys of home education is the freedom to follow your child’s curiosity. If your learner becomes especially interested in numbers, puzzles, everyday problem-solving, or even creating their own maths tricks — let them go for it! Use this plan to encourage curiosity, conversation, and real-life application. Adapt, skip, or expand sections depending on your child’s age, confidence, and interests.
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| Mental Maths Made Easy: Secrets, Shortcuts, and Smart Thinking | |
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| Overview | This home education lesson helps learners develop mental maths skills through fun strategies, creative tasks, and everyday maths challenges. The session introduces tricks such as number bonds, partitioning, doubling and halving, estimating, and working with percentages, helping learners gain confidence with numbers. |
| Learning Objectives | - Understand and use mental maths techniques such as partitioning, doubling, and number bonds - Apply shortcuts for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and percentages - Solve real-life problems using estimation and mental maths - Spot patterns to make calculations quicker and easier |
| Estimated Time | 60–90 minutes |
| Starter Activity | Ask: “What is mental maths and when do you use it without realising?” Discuss examples like shopping, cooking, playing games, or sharing sweets. Challenge: Can you add up these prices quickly? (give 3–4 imaginary prices) Write down answers and discuss different ways you worked them out. |
| Read and Learn | Read the learning resource Mental Maths Made Easy: Secrets, Shortcuts, and Smart Thinking aloud or independently. Then discuss:
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| Activities | Mental Maths Challenge:
Real-Life Maths: Create a pretend shop. Fill it with 6 imaginary products with prices. Use mental maths to:
Make a “Mental Maths Cheat Sheet” including:
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| Deeper Thinking | Discussion Question: “Is being fast at maths the same as being good at maths?” Talk about the difference between speed and understanding. Ask: “Which is more important — getting the right answer quickly, or knowing why it’s right?” |
| Creative Projects | - Create a maths poster showing different tricks learned today - Make a mini maths game using mental maths (e.g., a board game or card game) - Write a short story where a character uses mental maths to solve a real-world problem (e.g., at a market or on an adventure) |
| Review & Reflect | Ask the learner:
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| Extensions & Homework | - Practise mental maths in real life for a week (shopping, games, cooking) - Teach someone else (parent, sibling, or friend) a mental maths trick you learned - Research famous mathematicians and find out if they used mental maths tricks |