I spend a ridiculous amount of time searching online for resources, reading reviews and comparing different items. The main reason is a hate buying a book and then it arrives and it ends up just sitting there not being used. I really hate that.
On one of my many searches for KS3 books I came across a range of Maths books called Catch-up Books. There are 5 in the range and they each get progressively harder. I was intrigued. Not because I thought we needed a catch-up book but because I wondered if we could use these as revision books/ practice books / way to build up confidence and speed.
When we are busy with a Maths section – e.g. Geometry I still like to give me daughter other Maths pages to “remind her” of the Maths concepts that she has already learnt and just to keep practicing her Maths. I am a huge believer in doing lots of Maths practice.
So the idea of these books seemed interesting. I started looking at them an immediately could tell that the first few books in the series where just going to be too easy so I settled on KS3 Maths Catch-Up Workbook 4 (with Answers): ideal for home learning and catch-up (CGP KS3 Maths) and KS3 Maths Catch-Up Workbook 5 (with Answers): perfect for home learning and catch-up (CGP KS3 Maths).
The aim of these books is to improve number skills by practicing them over and over again so that the skills are part of the kids long-term memory and they can quickly recall how to do them. Each double page looks the same. The page starts with a brief explanation of a Maths concept. Then question 1 is practice of this concept. However questions 2 to 4 are practice of other concepts that the kids would have already covered and Question 5 is back to the concept covered on this page.
This layout is different to most other books. In most Maths books a concept is explained and then all the questions on that double page are examples of that concept. The idea behind this layout is the kids do a double page in one sitting so they end up practicing multiple concepts in one day. And the concepts are repeated multiple times over the next 70 pages of exercises so they end up getting a lot of practice over and over again.
It is a different layout and one that was new to us but I must admit we like it. We really like it. We are using this book as a way of just keeping older Maths concepts ticking over while we work on new Maths and I do think it is helping because she is constantly practicing over and over. And by doing 1 double page at a time it is a quick Maths warm-up type activity. And each book only costs me just under £5 (which for the amount of Maths examples included is good value for money).
I have not seen what is included in the first 3 books but I did find this summary at the back of the books, I thought it might be useful in helping you select the correct workbook.
I have found Book 4 and 5 a good addition to my KS3 maths resource collection.
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