Singapore Math Drills Team · 7 November 2026
Free, distraction-free math drills aligned to the MOE syllabus. No sign-up needed to try.
A tricycle, a toy car, a little picture graph, a movie ticket and a small barn pop onto the screen in a gentle arc. "Maths is hiding in your day. Can you find it in five P2 questions?" Each object turns out to be hiding one.
That is the Primary 2 Daily Five episode of our Topic Explainers series. Each question is read, then a calm ring counts down from 10 while your child thinks, and then the answer appears with one line of working. A small pill on every card says, "Need more time? Pause the video." Watch it with your child, pausing whenever more time is needed, then read on.
The five questions cover four P2 topics: whole numbers (twice), money, picture graphs and time. Our post on math hiding in your day looks at spotting the math in everyday objects with P5 questions. This post is about something else the video shows, quietly, in every single working line.
Look at the five lines of working in the video and they all start the same way: with a fact your child already knows. Not a new trick, and not a long method. Just something already learnt, used as a stepping stone.
| Object | Question | The fact to start from | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tricycles | 4 tricycles, 3 wheels each. How many wheels? | Counting in threes: 3, 6, 9, 12 | 12 |
| Toy car | A toy car costs $4.05. How many cents is that? | $1 is 100 cents | 405 cents |
| Picture graph | Each star = 5 books. How many books do 4 stars show? | Counting in fives: 5, 10, 15, 20 | 20 |
| Movie | A movie lasts 1 h 40 min. How many minutes? | 1 h is 60 min | 100 min |
| Farm | A farm has 378 hens and 245 ducks. How many birds? | Adding hundreds is easy | 623 |
Cover the last column if your child wants to try them first.
This habit matters because P2 children are often faced with questions that look new, when they are really an old fact in a new setting. A child who stops and asks, "What do I already know that helps here?" has a way in. A child who thinks every question needs a brand-new method is more likely to freeze or guess.
The routine for any question is short:
4 tricycles, 3 wheels each. How many wheels?
Step 1: Find the fact. Each tricycle has 3 wheels. There are 4 tricycles, so this is 4 groups of 3.
Step 2: Build from the fact. Count in threes, one tricycle at a time: 3, 6, 9, 12. Or use the multiplication fact: 4 × 3 = 12.
Answer: 12 wheels.
In our Primary 2 lessons, and in our app, multiplication is read as groups × size. Four groups of 3 wheels is 4 × 3, with the number of groups first. The answer is the same as 3 × 4, but writing it this way keeps the story and the number sentence matched.
The video shows only one tricycle on purpose, so the picture never gives the answer away. Your child has to picture the other three.
A toy car costs
$4.05. How many cents is that?
Step 1: Find the fact. $1 is 100 cents.
Step 2: Build from the fact. $4 is 4 lots of 100 cents, so $4 is 400 cents. The ".05" part is 5 cents.
Step 3: Put them together. 400 + 5 = 405.
Answer: 405 cents.
Check: 405 cents is a little more than 400 cents, and $4.05 is a little more than $4. The sizes match. For more on writing and comparing prices, see our post on P2 money.
A farm has 378 hens and 245 ducks. How many birds?
Step 1: Find the fact. Adding hundreds is easy: 378 and 200 more is 578. So split 245 into 200 and 45.
Step 2: Build from the fact.
378 + 200 = 578578 + 45 = 623Answer: 623 birds.
Check: estimate first. About 380 and about 250 is about 630, so 623 is the right size. The column method works too, regrouping twice: 8 ones and 5 ones make 13 ones, and 7 tens, 4 tens and the 1 regrouped ten make 12 tens. Splitting the number avoids that and makes a handy mental method to have alongside the written one.
The picture graph. The key says each star stands for 5 books, and there are 4 stars. That is 4 groups of 5: count in fives, 5, 10, 15, 20, or use 4 × 5 = 20. The graph shows 20 books. The key is the fact to start from, so make sure your child reads it before counting anything.
The movie. The fact is 1 h = 60 min. So 1 h 40 min is 60 + 40 = 100. The movie lasts 100 min.
$4.05 is 405 cents, not 45 cents. The 0 shows there are no ten-cent amounts. Writing $4 as 400 cents first keeps every digit in place.4 × 3, groups first. It gives the same answer as 3 × 4, but matching the story helps later word problems.$1 is 100 cents, and that 1 hour is 60 minutes carry most P2 questions. A minute or two of saying them aloud in the car or at dinner keeps them ready.The video ends on its tagline: "Five cards. Ready when you are." That is the idea behind Daily Five drills in Singapore Math Drills: five hand-picked drill cards waiting each day, so your child never has to decide what to practise, and can start whenever they are ready.
Practice is calm by design: no guilt-tripping over a missed day and no dark patterns, and your child's progress is only ever measured against their own. Five cards a day is plenty of time to practise the habit of starting from what you know.
Try a free interactive Primary 2 worksheet and see how calm practice feels, with no signup or credit card required.