Maths Games Which Help Kids Get Better At Maths!

Do you worry about helping your child with their maths homework?

Are you home educating your child and dreading the daily maths lessons?

Is your child falling behind in maths at school because they need more time to understand and practise the basic principles?

Perhaps your child is bright at maths and needs to go faster than the rest of the class to stay interested?

When my daughter lost confidence in maths a few years ago, I subscribed to a then-new online animated maths tutor, Maths-Whizz. Within a few months Tilly was not only right back where she should be, but was actually working at least a year above expectations for her age group at school (and sadly she had taken Maths Whizz as far as it would go). She enjoyed her animated lessons and games, and was never reluctant to sign in to her "room". She has remained confident with maths ever since.

Since then, Maths-Whizz has gone from strength to strength.

* It has added an extra two years to its offering, and now caters for children from 5 to 13.
* It has successfully entered the US market with Math-Whizz.
* Over 4000 schools in both the UK and US have signed up for its online services as well as over 30,000 home users.
* Results over the years have shown that students who use Maths-Whizz for at least 45 minutes a week get better at maths.

And now a free version has been launched which offers a "taster" of the Whizz service - and I'm thrilled that I am able to offer that free version for you within Activity Village. All you need to do is click on the link, choose whether you are following a UK or US curriculum, and create a free account - then your child can start getting better at maths!

Try Maths-Whizz

Incidentally, Whizz have furnished me with the following interesting facts:

* Students typically make an internal decision in their own mind by the age of 9 on whether they are good at maths or not. Once they have made that decision it is hard to turn it around if it is negative.

* Students who are confident and good at maths at primary/elementary school typically end up doing well in maths at secondary school. Students who struggle by the end of primary/elementary school usually fail in maths at secondary school.

* Students who leave secondary school with a pass grade in maths have, statistically, higher incomes in their working life.

* Being confident in maths contributes to success in other school subjects.

In simple terms, the sooner you support them to become confident in maths, the better their future prospects are.

OK, but why personalised tutoring? Isn’t school enough?

Each child really has their own unique maths profile. This is why it is so difficult for teachers in school to cater for every child’s individual needs – because they are all so different! More confident students may find their “maths age” (ability) is ahead of their actual age, whereas less confident students may find their “maths age” is lower than their actual age. Furthermore, their ability may vary across the different topics. An eight year old may find that she is ahead in addition, but struggling and behind in fractions.

It is virtually impossible for a teacher to cater to each individual child’s specific needs in a school / classroom scenario. As a result many students who don’t use Maths-Whizz, or some other form private tuition, find they are unchallenged or, worse, left behind and can lose confidence and fail to reach their potential as a result.

This can affect students for the rest of their lives. Many adults lack confidence in basic maths and this can affect their personal confidence, earnings and employment prospects.

Give your child the Maths-Whizz Advantage! Compared to other forms of tutoring, such as private tuition or taking your child to learning centres like Kumon, Maths-Whizz Tutoring Plus:

* is more fun, which means students gain more enjoyment out of maths
* provides you with measurable results (you can view those with live progress reports)
* is more convenient. Access over the internet from the comfort of your home
* generates proven results (see website for details)
* is better value for money.

Try Maths-Whizz

Chess For Kids!

Chess is an excellent game for kids. It teaches them strategic thinking, logic and it's fun, too! We have the rules of Chess, here, written so that children can understand them. Read online or download a printable version. And if you are desperate to start playing chess straight away and don't have a chess board or chess men, we have some printable versions of those, too!

Chess For Kids

Diwali - Lots NEW!

Diwali is celebrated from 17th October this year, and we have lots new on the site if you are interested in learning about this Hindu Festival of Light - or celebrating yourself.

We have many original Diwali craft ideas, including ideas for creating your own diya and rangoli.

Diwali Crafts

Diwali cards to print, New Diwali and Bhaiya-Dooj cards to print and colour, Fireworks acrostic printables, Happy Diwali gift/money envelopes, diya alphabets, and more!

Diwali printables

Celebrate this special day for brothers and sisters with our new "Brother" and "Sister" printables

Bhai-Dooj printables

We've got some really pretty Diwali colouring pages and "Happy Diwali" colouring cards. New this year are Bhaiya-Dooj colouring pages and colouring cards, too!

Diwali colouring pages

A new "How Many Diya Lamps?" puzzle

Diwali Puzzles

Rangoli are a beautiful designs drawn outside the entrance to a house by Hindus at Diwali. We have 18 new rangoli designs...

Rangoli colouring pages

Rangoli - Ideas, inspiration and colouring!

A traditional rangoli design

Rangoli are beautiful, often symmetrical, designs drawn on the ground outside the entrance to a house by Hindus during Diwali celebrations. There are many different ways of creating rangoli, and different regions of India have different traditions.

Some of our rangoli colouring pages

Our rangoli craft ideas have been up on the site for a few years now and have proved very popular, but this year we have updated the page and added some photos of wonderful rangoli to inspire your creative efforts! We've got grid papers to help you design your own rangoli, and we have also added 18 pages of fairly simple rangoli colouring pages for those who would like more of a head-start. These look beautiful when coloured and cut out, and can also be used as outlines for rangoli designs using glue and glitter, coloured salt or rice, or pulses.

Jack painting his rangoli design outside

Monsters Theme!

Children - boys in particular - enjoy inventing, drawing and playing with "monsters" - especially as monsters break all the rules and have as many eyes and legs and tails and colours as children can imagine! We have some really cute monsters in our new monsters theme, and you will find some imaginative monster craft ideas, cute monster printable games, monster worksheets and story starters ... in sort, lots for monster fans! And of course, monsters are fun at Halloween, too...
Monsters Theme

Halloween Printables - Yes, more!

Good practice for little hands! Use these Halloween cutting shapes to make a mobile, decorate the house, or stick to cards and invitations.
Halloween Cutting Shapes


We've got lots of new printable Halloween games today: a matching game, a sorting game and a set of Halloween dominoes...
Halloween Games

Halloween Printables - New Halloween Stationery, Posters and Booklets To Print

We've added some great new Halloween printables to the site over the weekend.


10 new designs this year, each of which can be printed blank, with handwriting lines, or lined for older kids. Great for all writing projects at home and school...
Halloween Stationery


These are designed for the classroom but are fun for home too. Print out 2 posters to display with Halloween words...
Halloween Words Posters


Print, fold and read - or practice writing on traceable letters. 3 mini-booklets on a Halloween theme!
Halloween Words Booklets

Lots more Halloween Printables

Last minute Grandparent's Day printables!

For those of you celebrating Grandparent's Day today, we thought you might like to have a look at these last minute Grandparent's Day printable bookmarks ... the top one of each sheet is ready to print, cut and give, and, if the kids are inspired by the design, they can do their own version with the black and white outline bookmarks below! And as grannies and grandpas do lots of reading, why not make them all!
Grandparent's Day Printables

Autumn Printables - Lots NEW!

We've added 3 designs of cute new autum / fall writing paper (each design comes blank, ruled and with handwriting lines) as well as some gorgeous autumn bookmarks, 3 autumn lacing animals for little ones (a squirrel, a hare and an owl) and some printable animal finger puppets, too. The animals are the start of a new British Wildlife theme which will be taking shape on the website over the next few weeks!
Autumn / Fall Printables

Autumn / Fall Coloring Pages - 8 NEW!

We have 8 fabulous new autumn / fall coloring pages on the website. We love them - they are full of detail and surprises, and perfect for older children. One is specially for Harvest Festival, and a few are perfect for Thanksgiving too.
Autumn / Fall Coloring Pages

Win a sample Waybuloo magazine (UK)

Waybuloo Magazine has developed an online game to mark the launch of the magazine. Simply play the Waybuloo online game, Flight of the Narabug, and enter your details – there are 5,000 free samples to give away.

The game is another way for children to extend their enjoyment of the series and magazine. Children can play with De Li and her ‘Narabug’, helping to collect strawberries to share with the other Piplings. In addition, the game will give young children the opportunity to learn to mark the launch of Waybuloo Magazine, the pre-school title based on the new CBeebies programme and the first magazine to help children learn about feelings, understand emotions and their impact on the world around them. and develop their computer skills.

About Waybuloo Magazine
Waybuloo is the first pre-school magazine to help children learn about feelings and understand emotions. Through their engagement with De Li, Nok Tok, Lau Lau and Yojojo (the ‘Piplings’) in the land of Nara, the magazine aims to help a child’s development in a number of ways:

• Feeling Good – helping children to understand how to care about themselves, their world and other people;


• Communication – having fun sharing stories, making choices, thinking and talking about feelings and emotions;


• Being Creative – confidently making things for themselves and others;


• Finding Out – discovering more about things in the natural world and learning to appreciate them;


• Physical Development – keeping fit and healthy with the Piplings, eating fruit & vegetables and trying yogo (a simple, gentle form of yoga).

8 Activities to Aid Social and Emotional Learning in your Child

Social skills involving sharing, interaction and expressing views are viewed by parents as valuable to a child's development, so children’s educational specialist and editor of Waybuloo Magazine, Stephanie Cooper, has put together some fun and practical activities to encourage really positive behaviour with young children.
Read Stephanie's suggestions here:
8 Activities to Aid Social and Emotional Learning in your Child

Helping Our Children Survive Their School Years

By Nancy Kelsey Smith

With the school year having already started for most and on the verge of starting for many, problems that were "tucked away" during the summer months are now back in full force. Parents often battle mixed emotions as they send their children off to school, happy to have them back on a scheduled routine and sad that they'll see less of them for the next 9 months. First time mothers of kindergartener's are often reluctant to accept that their little ones are now going to be "out into the world", realizing that they are stepping into new territory from which there is no turning back. For others, the end of summer hasn't come soon enough. For the millions of two working parent families, covering the bases for their kids during the summer months is a tough assignment.

But what about the kids? How are they feeling about beginning a new school year?

Continue reading Helping Our Children Survive Their School Years

Toddler Activities - For Your Kids Growth And Your Sanity

By Jayce Broda

The great thing about having young children is that your perspective can be their perspective. You just have to sell it right. For example, today I took my kids to volunteer at our local humane society. Now even-though they spent most of the time picking up dog poo, all three are pumped to do it again next week. Why you ask? How is that possible? Because to them, it was not a crappy job. It was a chance to show how they could help animals in need. It showed how they could help a dog be adopted, who would otherwise be euthanized. It was a chance for them to show mom and dad how they could do a job all by themselves. By the time we left the dog shelter, our kids felt like heroes. I spent time the day before talking to them about the above points; I sold them a positive perspective on cleaning up dog poo...

Read the rest of this article here

Halloween Coloring Pages - 16 new!

We are thrilled to have added today 16 fantastic new Halloween coloring pages - there is something here for all ages!
Halloweeen Coloring Pages

Bodypopping tricks - This boy is unbelievably good!

This is my favourite of our series of "Learn A Skill Videos" for kids. My kids and I have been practising the wave, the glide and the robot and we haven't laughed so much in a long time. Of course, it's really me they are laughing at! I just wish I had learned to do this when I was the same age as this boy, who is really incredible.

More Learn A New Skill Videos

Learn Some New Skipping Tricks!

Here's the latest in our series of "Learn A Skill Videos" for kids - this one featuring some really clever skipping tricks:

More Learn A Skill Videos

Coolest Basketball Tricks Video

Watch and listen to our expert basketball kid showcase a range of the coolest skills, then break each skill down into bite-size doable chunks for kids everywhere to learn.

More Learn A New Skill Videos

Getting Kids Ready For The New School Year

As soon as summer starts to wind down, it is time to purchase the essentials you need to get your child ready for another (or even a first) year of school. Making "preparing for school" into an event that the whole family enjoys will help your child feel ready-and also show him that you are interested and involved with his education. Take some time in the weeks leading up to the big day, and plan a few outings and activities to be sure you both are ready. Try a few of our tips to get started...

Read more of Getting Kids Ready For The New School Year

Balancing Homeschooling And Working At Home

By Michelle Shaeffer

A common reason for moms to homeschool their children and work from home is that the at-home lifestyle appeals to them. It sounds like an ideal situation - you're home, the kids are at home, and everyone's happy.

But juggling a home business with homeschooling usually doesn't look as peaceful as it might sound. In fact, this is a more likely scenario:

You've planned to do a math lesson with your children at 9 am. Since you have a few minutes of peace while the kids are finishing breakfast, you decide to fit in a quick email check.

There's an email from a prospective client, who wants a proposal from you right away, for a juicy contract. There's still 20 minutes before you had planned to start your school day, so you start to reply. Well, one thing leads to another...

Read the rest of Balancing Homeschooling And Working At Home