Singapore Math Drills Team · 31 October 2026
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"Grab a pencil and some paper. Ready to try five P4 questions?" A sheet of square paper draws itself on screen, and five empty boxes wait to be filled, one for each question.
That is Grab a Pencil, a Primary 4 episode of our Topic Explainers series. Each question is read, then a calm ring counts down from 10 while your child works it out, and then the answer appears with one line of working. Watch it with your child and a pencil, and pause whenever more time is needed. Then read on.
The five questions cover five P4 topics: whole numbers, factors and multiples, fractions, decimals, and area. What makes the video worth a second look is that each question comes with a small drawing that finishes its own working at the reveal: a number line, two hop tracks, a ribbon, a set of money discs and two squares on a grid. The drawing is not decoration. It is the method.
Many P4 children try to do everything in their heads, and that is where small slips creep in. The habit the video teaches is simple: read, sketch, then calculate, then check.
This is the pictorial step of the concrete, pictorial, abstract approach that Singapore math is built on. By P4, the concrete objects are mostly gone, but the pictures still do a lot of the thinking.
Here are the five questions, with the sketch for each:
| Topic | Question | Sketch | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole numbers | Round 46 739 visitors to the nearest 1000. | a number line from 46 000 to 47 000 | 47 000 |
| Factors and multiples | Find the first common multiple of 6 and 8. | hop tracks of 6 and 8 from 0 | 24 |
| Fractions | Siti cuts 1/4 m from a 7/8 m ribbon. How much is left? | a ribbon cut into eighths | 5/8 m |
| Decimals | A juice box costs $1.35. What is the cost of 6 boxes? | six groups of money discs |
If you want your child to try them cold, cover the last column now. Three of them are worked in full below.
Siti cuts 1/4 m from a ribbon that is 7/8 m long. How much ribbon is left?
Step 1: Sketch the ribbon. Draw a strip and mark it in eighths. Shade 7 of the 8 parts: that is the 7/8 m ribbon.
Step 2: Make the fractions match. The piece cut off is a quarter, but the ribbon is marked in eighths. One quarter is the same as two eighths: 1/4 = 2/8. On the sketch, cross out 2 of the shaded eighths.
Step 3: Subtract. 7/8 − 2/8 = 5/8. Five shaded eighths are left.
Answer: 5/8 m of ribbon is left.
Check: 5/8 + 2/8 = 7/8, the length we started with.
The sketch is what stops the most common slip here. If your child writes 7/8 − 1/4 = 6/4, taking away the tops and the bottoms separately, the ribbon shows straight away that the answer cannot be longer than the ribbon itself.
A juice box costs $1.35. What is the cost of 6 boxes?
Step 1: Sketch the money. Draw one group for each box. In each group, put a one-dollar disc and a 35-cent disc. That gives six groups.
Step 2: Count the dollars. There are 6 one-dollar discs: 6 × $1 = $6.
Step 3: Count the cents. There are 6 discs of 35 cents: 6 × $0.35 = $2.10. (Six lots of 35 cents is 210 cents, which is 2 dollars and 10 cents.)
Step 4: Put them together. $6 + $2.10 = $8.10.
Answer: 6 boxes cost $8.10.
Check: each box costs a little more than one dollar, so 6 boxes should cost a little more than 6 dollars. $8.10 fits.
Splitting the price into dollars and cents is the same idea as splitting a number into tens and ones before multiplying. It keeps every step small. You can also work it as 6 × 135 = 810 cents, then write 810 cents as $8.10.
A square with sides of 6 cm is joined to a square with sides of 8 cm. What is the total area of the figure?
Step 1: Sketch the two squares. Draw them side by side on squared paper, bottoms level. Label the sides 6 cm and 8 cm.
Step 2: Find each area. The area of a square is side × side.
6 × 6 = 36 cm²8 × 8 = 64 cm²Step 3: Add the areas. The squares do not overlap, so the total area is 36 + 64 = 100 cm².
Answer: the total area is 100 cm².
Check: the figure fits inside a rectangle 14 cm long and 8 cm wide, which has an area of 112 cm². Our answer is a bit smaller, which makes sense because there is a gap above the small square.
Splitting a figure into rectangles and squares, finding each area and adding them is the P4 method for composite figures, and the sketch shows where to split.
Rounding 46 739 to the nearest 1000. On a number line from 46 000 to 47 000, the halfway mark is 46 500. 46 739 is past halfway, so it rounds up to 47 000. The shortcut is to look at the hundreds digit: it is 7, which is 5 or more, so round up.
The first common multiple of 6 and 8. Hop along in 8s: 8, 16, 24. Check each against the 6 track: 8 and 16 are not multiples of 6, but 24 is, because 6 × 4 = 24 and 8 × 3 = 24. The first common multiple is 24. Our post on common multiples in P4 goes through this method in depth.
7/8 − 1/4 is not 6/4. Make the denominators the same first.6 × $0.35, writing $2.1 or $21.00. Saying "210 cents is 2 dollars and 10 cents" keeps the dot in the right place.6 + 8 = 14, then 14 × 14 = 196 cm². That is the area of a much bigger square. The sketch shows the two squares are separate shapes, so find each area first.7/8 m ribbon with 1/2 m cut off, or 5 juice boxes instead of 6) and solve it again with the same sketch.For why a few questions a day works better than a long sitting, see our post on why five a day works. For the bigger picture of working on paper, show your working explains why the method matters as much as the answer.
The video ends on its tagline: "Five cards a day, at your own pace." 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.
The pencil habit comes with them. Our built-in scratch pad is a full-screen canvas where your child can work a problem out by hand without leaving the app, so a quick ribbon or a pair of squares is always one tap away. And practice is calm by design, with no guilt-tripping over a missed day and progress only ever measured against your child's own.
Try a free interactive worksheet and see how calm practice feels, with no signup or credit card required.
$8.10 |
| Area | A 6 cm square joins an 8 cm square. What is the total area? | two squares on a grid | 100 cm² |