Foundation daily maths review
A free Foundation maths warm-up for every school day of the term: 4 mixed questions each morning, Monday to Friday, for 10 weeks. Each question practises a Foundation content description from the Australian Curriculum (v9), and its AC9 code is printed beside it. Recent skills come up most often and earlier ones are threaded back in, so nothing drops out of memory before the end-of-year check. Every answer is computed in code, so the key is never wrong.
Monday
A quick mix of 4 questions to warm up. Answer each one in the space provided.
- 1.1 + 3 =AdditionAC9MFN05
- 2.5 - 5 =SubtractionAC9MFN05
- 3.4 + ___ = 10Number BondsAC9MFN04
- 4.Write <, > or =: 4 ___ 7Comparing NumbersAC9MFN01
Tuesday
A quick mix of 4 questions to warm up. Answer each one in the space provided.
- 1.7 + 4 =AdditionAC9MFN05
- 2.7 + ___ = 10Number BondsAC9MFN04
- 3.3 - 3 =SubtractionAC9MFN05
- 4.What comes next? 1, 2, 3, 4, ___PatternsAC9MFA01
Wednesday
A quick mix of 4 questions to warm up. Answer each one in the space provided.
- 1.5 + 10 =AdditionAC9MFN05
- 2.1 + ___ = 10Number BondsAC9MFN04
- 3.8 - 8 =SubtractionAC9MFN05
- 4.What comes next? 6, 7, 8, 9, ___PatternsAC9MFA01
Thursday
A quick mix of 4 questions to warm up. Answer each one in the space provided.
- 1.7 - 2 =SubtractionAC9MFN05
- 2.Write <, > or =: 3 ___ 10Comparing NumbersAC9MFN01
- 3.What comes next? ♥ ● ★ ♥ ● ★ ♥ ___PatternsAC9MFA01
- 4.6 + 1 =AdditionAC9MFN05
Friday
A quick mix of 4 questions to warm up. Answer each one in the space provided.
- 1.5 - 2 =SubtractionAC9MFN05
- 2.What comes next? 1, 3, 5, 7, ___PatternsAC9MFA01
- 3.6 + 2 =AdditionAC9MFN05
- 4.0 + ___ = 10Number BondsAC9MFN04
What the Foundation mix covers
Four quick questions a day: comparing two numbers, making ten, adding and taking away, and continuing a repeating pattern. Foundation maths is a small set of big ideas, so the same five skills rotate all week rather than something new every morning.
| Code | Strand | What it asks for | Practised by |
|---|---|---|---|
| AC9MFN01 | Number | Name and order numbers to 20. Say, show and put in order numbers from zero to at least twenty, using real and on-screen materials and numerals. | Comparing Numbers |
| AC9MFN04 | Number | Part-part-whole to 10. Split and join collections of up to ten using part-part-whole thinking and subitising, naming the parts that make the whole. | Number Bonds |
| AC9MFN05 | Number | Model adding and taking away. Use real and on-screen materials with counting or subitising to act out everyday adding-to, taking-from and how-many situations. | Addition, Subtraction |
| AC9MFA01 | Algebra | Copy and continue patterns. Recognise, copy and keep going with simple repeating patterns shown with objects, shapes, sounds or movements. | Patterns |
Left out on purpose
A warm-up only works if every question can be answered from the words on the page. These are the Foundation topics we keep out of the daily mix, and why:
- Subitising, counting collections, shape and position need objects or pictures, so they belong in hands-on lessons and the picture worksheets, not a text warm-up.
- Skip counting by 3s and 10s from the generator is beyond Foundation, so it is not in the mix.
Strands with no text-only question in this mix: Measurement (try Foundation comparing length, Foundation telling time); Space (try Foundation position & maps); Statistics (try Foundation sorting & counting data).
How to run it in 5 to 8 minutes
- Print the five daily pages for the week (the answer key stays off unless you tick it), or project one day on the board as a do-now while the roll is marked.
- Students answer on their own, without help. A warm-up is retrieval practice: the effort of remembering is what makes the skill stick.
- Mark together straight away. Ask one student to explain each answer and write the method on the board.
- Note the question most students missed. That topic, and its AC9 code, is your reteach target for the week, and the matching Foundation worksheets are one click away on the Foundation hub.
More Foundation maths
- Early finisher activities for Foundation to Year 2 for students who finish the warm-up first.
- Daily maths review for every year, Foundation to Year 6.
Frequently asked questions
What is in the Foundation daily maths review?
4 short, mixed questions for each school day, Monday to Friday, for 10 weeks. Every question comes from a topic mapped to a Foundation Australian Curriculum (AC9) content description, and the code is printed beside it so you can see what each question checks.
Are the answers correct?
Yes. Each question is made by a procedural generator that computes its own answer in code. No language model writes the maths, so the answer key cannot contain a guessed or mistyped answer.
How long should a daily review take?
Plan for 5 to 8 minutes including marking. Students answer on their own first, then you go through the answers together, which is when most of the learning happens. If most of the class gets a question wrong, that topic is your reteach for the week.
Is it the same as the US morning work pages?
No. It uses the same spiral method, but the Foundation version only draws on topics that match the Foundation AC9 content descriptions, uses Year labels and metric units, and is seeded separately, so the questions differ.
Can I print a whole term at once?
Each week prints as five daily pages plus an optional answer key. Step through Week 1 to Week 10; every week is fixed, so a class set always matches the key.
Australian Curriculum content descriptions (c) ACARA, used under CC BY 4.0. Descriptions are paraphrased. See australiancurriculum.edu.au.