Short practice should still make pupils think
LTD warm-ups revisit important ideas through carefully chosen examples, visual models, quick discussion and practice. They strengthen memory and flexibility without turning the start of every maths lesson into a race through disconnected questions.
Show a short whole-class or partner warm-up using mini-whiteboards, cards, number lines or oral prompts.
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- 16:9 landscape, 2400px wide minimum
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- ltd-uk-warmups-hero-image-01.webp
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What a warm-up is for
A warm-up can retrieve prior learning, prepare pupils for the current lesson, strengthen a strategy or reveal a misconception. The teacher should know which of these jobs the activity is doing.
Trying to review the entire curriculum every day often leads to shallow coverage.
Repetition with variety
Pupils need repeated encounters with important facts and concepts. Variation keeps attention on structure by changing the numbers, representation, missing element or question while preserving the underlying idea.
Warm-up categories
- Number sense and subitising
- Number bonds and additive strategies
- Place value
- Multiplication and division facts
- Fractions, decimals and percentages
- Measurement conversions
- Shape and spatial reasoning
- Data and statistics
- Reasoning prompts
- Mixed retrieval
A simple warm-up structure
Notice
Present a representation, number string or short problem and give pupils time to observe.
Think
Ask pupils to solve, predict or identify a connection using a known strategy.
Talk
Compare methods and make the key relationship explicit.
Practise
Use a short set of related questions to strengthen fluency.
Use visual models beyond early years
Ten-frames, number lines, arrays, place value charts and fraction models can be used quickly in warm-ups to reactivate a concept. Older pupils may need less physical handling, but the representation can still support recall and reasoning.
Free samples and full guide
Offer several open warm-ups by phase and topic. The full guide can be included in membership or sold separately, depending on the final product decision. Clearly explain the difference.
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