Arithmetika Number skills practice tasks

Mathematics practice makes perfect students

Sticky star tasks are summative!

Arithmetika's sticky star work plans are post-teaching summative tasks in that they reflect the ability level expected of students at each stage of the curriculum.

Sticky star tasks are formative!

They are also formative in that students usually have to take the tasks several times before they get 100%, and in doing so reveal their understanding and proficiency for you to help with.

Automatically assigned to students, all answers marked and recorded

Nothing for the teacher to do except monitor progress and results, and provide help and encouragement as needed.

Reach for the stars

Sticky star work plans:
  • Mental Agility work plan tasks reflect the mental arithmetic skills (without a calculator) expected of students entering year 7.
  • Number Skills work plan tasks reflect the additional number skills (sometimes with the help of a calculator) that students should be able to handle by the end of Year 7.
  • Australian Curriculum I work plan tasks reflect the curriculum skills that are taught in Year 7 and as such are most suitable for Year 8 students.
  • Australian Curriculum II work plan tasks reflect what curriculum skills are taught in Year 8 and as such are most suitable for Year 9 students.

Four levels of difficulty

  • Each exercise never looks the same twice, so students can concentrate on improving their speed and accuracy by completing each exercise as many times as they like.
  • Students are expected to attempt these exercises without a calculator!

Number Skills exercises Basic Level

  • Most exercises have to be completed in two minutes and may have as few as ten questions or as many as thirty questions.
  • Questions are from the Number and Place Value strand and generally involve positive whole numbers only. Main focus is on times tables, with some adding, subtracting and dividing.

Number Skills exercises Standard Level

  • Most exercises have to be completed in three or four minutes and usually have at least twenty questions.
  • Questions are mostly from the Number and Place Value strand with a gentle introduction to the Fractions and Decimals strand. At this level students will practice doing their arithmetic on paper before enetering the answer and will also expect some numbers to be fractions.
  • Students continue to develop their basic arithmetic - mental addition, subtraction and multiplication, and also develop knowledge of some simple properties of numbers

Number Skills exercises Intermediate Level

  • By the time students reach this level they are becoming good at mental arithmetic!
  • There are questions from the Number and Place Value strand and the Fractions and Decimals strand
  • At this level students will practice doing their arithmetic on paper before giving the answer. Decimals are everywhere and so are fractions. There are also questions involving negative numbers

Number Skills exercises Extended Level

  • By the time students reach this level they are very good at mental arithmetic!
  • There are questions from the Number and Place Value strand and the Fractions and Decimals strand
  • At this level they will practice doing their arithmetic on paper before giving the answer. Decimals are everywhere and so are fractions, percentages and negative numbers. There are also questions involving factors, multiples, powers and roots

Sample tasks

Example tasks