Friday, 29th March 2024

Friday, 29th March 2024

What will your child learn for Mathematics in Lower Primary?

19 Jan 2016

To make learning fun and engaging, teachers design activities for students to learn together.
To make learning fun and engaging, teachers design activities for students to learn together.

The aim of primary Mathematics is to enable all children to acquire and apply mathematical concepts and skills for everyday use. These skills will then be applied to support further learning in Mathematics, develop different levels of thinking, reasoning, communication, application and metacognitive skills, through a mathematical approach to problem solving. When your child grasps and understand mathematical concepts, he/she will be more confident in the subject and may have a deeper interest in Mathematics kindled.

The content can be broadly described along three categories: Numbers and Algebra, Measurements and Geometry, and Statistics. 

Primary One

Numbers and Algebra: Your child will learn to count, read, write, compare and order numbers up to 100. They will also learn the concepts of addition and subtraction, as well as the concepts of multiplication and division. Simple 1-step word problems will be introduced and your child will be taught to solve them.

Example of a 1-step word problem

Susan needs 15 eggs to bake a cake.

She has 9 eggs now.

How many more eggs does she need? 

For the topic on Money, your child will also learn to recognise coins and notes of different denominations, and to match coins and notes of one denomination to an equivalent set of another denomination.

Measurements and Geometry: Your child will learn to measure and compare the length of objects using non-standard units and tell time to the hour/half hour.

They will also learn to identify, name, describe, classify and make patterns with two-dimensional shapes including rectangles, squares, circles and triangles.

Statistics: Your child will learn to read and interpret data from simple picture graphs using languages such as ‘most’, ‘least’, ‘greatest’, ‘smallest’, ‘as much as’ and ‘as many as’.

Primary Two

Numbers and Algebra: Your child will learn to count, read, write, compare and order numbers up to 1000. He/She will also learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide within the multiplication tables of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10. He/She will be taught to solve 1-step and 2-step word problems involving both multiplication and division, and both addition and subtraction respectively.

Example of a 2-step word problem

Ali had 38 marbles.

He bought 25 marbles from a stall.

On his way home, he dropped some of them and had 18 marbles left.

How many marbles did he drop?

For the topic on Money, your child will be taught to count, read and write of money in dollars and cents. He/she will also learn to convert an amount of money in decimal notation to cents, and vice versa.

For Fractions, he/she will learn to compare, order, add and subtract units (numerators of 1, e.g. fraction 1 over 2, 1 over five) and like fractions (same denominators, e.g.  fraction 5 over 10, 3 over 10)

Measurement and Geometry: Your child will learn to measure, compare and order lengths (in metres/centimetres), masses (in kilograms/grams) and volumes (in litres) of objects. For Time, he/she will be able to tell and write time to five minutes in everyday contexts such as reading the television schedules.

For the topic on two-dimensional (2D) shapes, your child will learn to identify, describe and classify 2D (including semi-circles and quarter-circles) and three-dimensional (3D) shapes, as well as create composite figures using 2D shapes.

Statistics: Your child will learn to read and interpret data from picture graphs with scales.

Primary Three

Number and Algebra: Your child will learn to count, read, write, compare and order numbers up to 10,000. They will also learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide within the multiplication tables of 6, 7, 8 and 9. The concept of remainders will be introduced. He/she will be taught to solve 2-step word problems involving 4 operations.

Example of a 2-step word problem involving four operations

Mrs Lee bought 4 boxes of muffins for a party.

There were 6 muffins in each box.

She then put all the muffins in groups of 3 on each plate.

How many plates did she use?

For the topic on Money, your child will be taught to add and subtract money in decimal notations.

For Fractions, he/she will learn equivalent fractions, express a fraction in its simplest form, compare and order unlike fractions (different denominators, e.g.  fraction 2 over 5, 1 over 3), and add and subtract related fractions (denominators are related by multiples, e.g. one sixth plus two thirds).

Measurement and Geometry: Your child will learn to measure and convert measurements in compound units (such as kilometres and metres, metres and centimetres, kilograms and grams, litres and millilitres). He/She will also learn to tell time to the minute, measure and convert time in hours and minutes (vice versa). Besides perimeters of rectilinear figures, rectangles and squares, he/she will also learn to measure areas of rectangles and squares.

Concepts of angles, parallel and perpendicular lines will also be taught at this level.

Statistics: Your child will learn to read and interpret data from bar graphs with different scales on axis.