Reading at home 

Talk about their reading 

• Ask your child what they are reading and talk about their ideas: What is the ‘picture’ they have of particular characters? Are there people like that in your family or whānau? What do they want to find out from the book? What are the important messages? What do they think is going to happen next? What else do they need to know to understand the story or topic? 
• Talk about books on similar topics. This helps your child to pull together ideas from different places.
• Talk about different types of stories that are read or spoken. Articles or stories online, whakataukī | proverbs, comics, stories, songs, waiata, non-fiction books or novels will each have different points you can talk about together. 
• Help your child to share their thinking. Get them to share opinions and talk about why they think that. Listen, even when you don’t agree with their ideas. 

Read together

• Find out information together from different places. For example, online dictionaries, magazines, family trees, whakapapa
• Play games that involve reading in a fun way.
• Encourage your child to read to others. Younger brothers and sisters, whānau or grandparents are great audiences for practising smooth and interesting reading out loud. 
• Visit the library regularly. Help your child choose books they’re interested in, for example, their hobbies, interests or who they are and where they come from or encourage them to get books out that are about what they are studying at school. They may need you to help by reading to them, as well.
• Find books of movies or TV programmes. It can help your child to learn different ways to tell the same story if they read the ‘stories’ they have watched. 

Be a reader yourself

• Talk about what you are reading and why you are enjoying it or what is challenging about it. Read a book to your child that they might find difficult but want to read and talk about it as you read. Use your first language whenever you can. It can help your child’s learning.
• Read the same book, magazine, or online content as your child. You can then share your ideas about what you have read. You could talk about why the authors made the choices they did in their writing. 

Writing at home

Make writing fun

• Help your child write about their heroes, sports events, tīpuna | ancestors, hobbies and interests. This helps them stay interested in what they are writing about.
• Play word games and do puzzles together to help your child learn more about words and spelling.
• Have interesting paper and pens available to help them make a special book to write in or create a digital book together of special events.
• Write to your child, or share jokes, cartoons, or short articles they might like to read.
• Play with words. Thinking of interesting words and discussing new ones can help increase the words your child uses when they write – look words up in an online dictionary or talk to family and whānau members to learn more about the background and the whakapapa | origins of the words. 

Talk about your child's writing

• Talk about ideas and information they are going to write about. Talk about experiences, diagrams, graphs, pictures, photos and material that your child is planning to use for school. Discussing the information and main ideas can help their planning for writing and their understanding, too. 
• Share enjoyment of their writing. Read and talk about the writing that your child does. Give praise for things they have put effort into to support their learning.
• Play with words. Thinking of interesting words and discussing new ones can help increase the words your child uses when they write. 
• Share your own writing with your child. For example, share lists, planning for family events or an email. You can help them to see that you too use writing for different purposes. 

Write for a reason

• Encourage your child to write messages, invitations, thank you letters, poems, stories or postcards to friends, family and whānau – make it fun.
• Ask your child who they would like to write to. It is helpful if what they write is given or sent to others.
• Ask them to write a story to read to a whānau member.
• A diary or journal – on paper or online – can help your child to write about their experiences and their own feelings about things that have happened at school, at home, in the world, on the marae, at sports events and on TV. 

Maths at home

Talk together and have fun with numbers, shapes, games, and patterns 

Help your child to:

• count forwards and backwards (starting with numbers like these fractions: ¼, ½, ¾, 1, 1¼, 1½ then back again) 
• talk about large numbers in your environment for example, gaming scores, distances 
• find families of facts when multiplying and dividing with 6, 8 and 9, for example, if your child knows 6 × 8 = 48, then they will also know that 8 × 6 = 48, 48 ÷ 6 = 8 and 48 ÷ 8 = 6
• estimate the cost of a weekly shop to the nearest dollar
• read car number plates, look at the car’s odometer to see how far you’ve gone
• talk about graphs and tables that are in your local newspapers or online 
• use an app or a map to find North, and discuss the compass points, and familiar locations at each point
• notice angles around you that are smaller than, equal to or larger than a right angle. 

Use easy, everyday activities 

Involve your child in:

• making dinner at home, at camp or on a marae – look at how many and how much is needed for the people eating (potatoes, bok choy, carrots, sausages). Talk about fractions (half, quarter, fourth) to calculate how much to cook and cooking times 
• choosing items to weigh at the supermarket. Look for the best buy between different brands of the same items, for example, breakfast cereal, spreads like jam or honey
• practising times tables. Check with your child or their teacher which times tables you could help your child with
• finding out how long an event is when the start and finish times are known, or working out ‘how long until...’, for example, how many minutes until the movie or until we have to leave the park.

For wet afternoon, school holidays and weekends

Get together with your child and:

• play card and board games that use guessing and checking
• do complicated jigsaw puzzles
• do paper folding (origami) by following written instructions or a video
• look through junk mail or online shops – find the most expensive and cheapest item advertised
• use junk mail or other strips of paper to make a woven mat
• make a roster for jobs around the house
• plan for a special event on a budget; for example, afternoon tea for a grandparent, teacher or family friend
• play outside games, for example, cricket, basketball, mini-golf and soccer
• bake – follow a simple recipe, for example, scones or pikelets
• use blocks that fit together to make a model. Draw what it looks like from each side and above. Then draw what they think it looks like from underneath. Once finished, check the underneath of the real object against the drawing
• make water balloons and see how far you could throw them (outside!) and how far the water splatters
• collect and put in order the birthdays of family and whānau. Make a reminder calendar for the year. 

Download the year 5 resources