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In the week after half term, Maths Week took place for the whole school. Everybody was getting involved in maths with activities like cooking, enterprise challenges and making junk models.

On Wednesday evening, author and mathematician Kjartan Poskitt came into school to host a family maths quiz. All of the questions were multiple choice and you had to work as a team. Some of them were really challenging and made you think whilst others were just simple additions or multiplications. For some of the questions you had to pick a runner who had to decide on the answer with their team and then run to the symbol which was by the answer (instead of being labelled a, b or c the questions were labelled with shapes).

On Thursday, Kjartan came back to school to speak to everyone. He included some of his tricks and crazy maths facts. Did you know that if you put pound coins on every square of a chess board each time adding one pound onto what was on the previous square, you would have less money covering all the squares than if you put a penny on the first square and then doubled it for the second and the doubled the second for the third!

It was fun especially when Kjartan kept on being silly! -Freya.

The reception children had a fabulous maths week exploring numbers and 3d shapes. They enjoyed making links with maths in the real world and new things. They had a lot to say about the things they have been doing:

‘I liked building a model- I built a treasure chest. I used cylinders and a cuboid.

We had a bike and scooter day. We tried to make different numbers sing the wheels. We had three wheeled, two wheeled and four wheeled bikes and scooters. We also did some junk modelling. I made a computer- it wasn’t a cuboid because the sides were too curvy. -Tilda

We did some fun maths- we did junk modelling. I made a sword that attached to your arm. I used a long cylinder. –Ruben

 

When we did maths week we learned about number and shape. We learned about cubes and cuboids. I loved doing the numbers. I liked them when they went up to 100. I liked counting. –Maddie

I loved making doubles, because it was fun to collect things from around the classroom. –Audrey

I loved scooter day. It was fun going on the track. We made twelve by using the wheels on our bikes and scooters. I made twelve by four groups of three. –Henry

In Year 1 /2 we had a very busy week, full of exciting challenges. We have been cooking, playing, measuring and changing how we think about maths!

In Indigo we made chocolate fridge cake and measured out the ingredients. We had to use our maths and science skills. We followed a maths trail in the playground. There were different sums we could make in the playground. It was fun! We also used tape measure or our fingers to measure the length of items around the school which we had estimated first. To measure around our heads we used a piece of paper. We did this so we would know how big we had to make our hats. We made the hats the week after.

 I really loved making fridge cake and taking it home because it was really yummy! -Evie

In Azure we loved making the fridge cake because crushing the biscuits was fun. We had to measure the ingredients using measuring scales. We watched Kjartan Poskitt performing magic tricks in assembly. They were fantastic! We tried some of these at home on our parents. In our class we had a timed maths challenge booklet. We had to complete as many questions as we could in five minutes. We then tried to beat our score each day. We also played lots of maths board games. Place value bingo and 11’s were our favourite.

I really liked Kjartan’s magic tricks. I played one against my dad at home and I won! -Buddy and Isabelle

In Teal we made our own class book called ‘The Foxes Year’ to show what happens in a fox’s life each month of the year.  First we looked up facts about foxes to see what they do every month. Then, in small groups, we made our own pages. We drew the foxes and decorated the background. We made shell sweets called peppermint creams. We had to measure out the ingredients using weighing scales and mix it all together. It was fun and the icing sugar went everywhere!

We also had a fun lesson with Haribo sweets! On our table (in groups of 6) we had 20 sweets in the middle and we were allowed to choose which maths we wanted to do. Some people wanted to draw the shapes and other people wanted to make number sentences.

I tried to share the sweets equally but it didn’t work. Then I made a sweet shop and people had to give me the right amount of money to buy the sweets -Minnie

My favourite bit was shaping the balls into shells. They tasted a bit pepperminty and they texture was crumbly -Thomas

In Year 3/4 we learned maths songs. Have you ever struggled learning your times tables? Do you find them tricky to keep in your head? Well, Year 3/4 found a way to keep them in your head! During Maths week, we sang along to Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Elton John and Adele! On YouTube there are hundreds of maths songs that help you learn times tables in a really fun way. We have listed a few of the links below for you to try out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XzfQUXqiYY……..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7rYbk9PNuM

In Year 3/4 we also learnt about the Fibonacci sequence. To start our week, we looked at a mind blowing sequence that was originally discovered over 800 years ago! It is said that Leonardo Fibonacci noticed a pattern with these numbers. Here is an example of the sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, …can you spot the pattern? Want a little bit of help? In this list, you can find the next number by adding the last two numbers together. How far can you take the sequence? Did you know that this sequence also appears in nature? Have a look at the spiral created in the centre of a sunflower!

We also made fridge cake. To help us understand weighing and measures, we thought it would be great fun to make fridge cakes a whole class. We were given the recipe, and as a team, we had to ensure that we measured out our ingredients properly (and not help ourselves to the odd bit of chocolate!) before mixing them all together. Each team had to work out how many toppings they could have and we realised how important it is to make sure that you ingredients are weighed correctly otherwise your cake might not turn out how it should!

We took part in a maths relay- on your marks, get set, GO! We raced against each other in teams to see who could answer 6 addition questions first. We set ourselves up on the top playground and worked in a relay way, each taking it in turns to run to the other side of the court to grab two prices that had to be brought back to the team to be added. Once we added one pair, we then sent another runner to get a new pair. The winning team was the one who answered their 6 questions the fastest. With Sports Day coming up, we also thought it would be a good idea to combine trials for the events with Maths! We had to measure the distance thrown, the length jumped and the time taken to run a distance. Some of us also came up with own active games linked to times tables. One game involved the question master shouting out a times table question and assigning 3 answers to 3 runners. When he shouted GO, we all had to chase the runner who had the correct answer!

We really enjoyed the Kjartan Problems Loop course. The whole of Year 3/4 spent part of a morning going round to 7 different stations where the adult in our year group had a Kjartan Poskitt problem/activity. The activities were: Sneaky Spinners, Is There A Times Table That Will Multiply Any Two Numbers?, Why Does A Milking Stool Only Have Three Legs?, Mirror Numbers, How Many Snaps Does It Take To Break Up A Chocolate Bar?, How To Measure The Volume Of Your Foot and How To Climb Through A Postcard. We had so much fun doing each one and couldn’t believe some of the results! Do you realise that with one sheet of paper, if you cut it correctly, you can open it up to allow over 20 children to climb through it! We were extremely excited to have Kjartan visit the school again. He started his day off with an assembly for KS2 classes where he demonstrated some of his most popular tricks and puzzles. After the assembly, he then spent time with Y3/4 teaching us the most amazing facts. He showed us how to make a self-assembling cube using a few bits of card and some string. We also learnt about the stars in our solar system that are much bigger than the sun. Having Kjartan in school for Maths Week was brilliant and we hope he can come back to see us soon. The day after his visit, the teachers let us try out some of his tricks. We made our own predictor cards, triflexagons, self-assembling cubes and looked at mind reading game he has on his website. http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/

Year 5/6 went on a trek to Box Woods for a fun filled day of maths. In the morning, they walked through the woods completing challenges in groups as they went. In the afternoon they competed in a competition to design the best maths puzzle using natural resources. The morning challenges were things like balance the scales where you had a 100g weight in one side and you had to balance it out using things you found in the woods. Another was Fibonacci forest where you had to create an image to represent the Fibonacci sequence using things you could find on the forest floor. After lunch in the woods, everybody tried to design a challenging and creative maths puzzle for others to solve. There was no official winner, but everyone got a packet of Haribos to keep them going on the way home. “It was a fabulous day full of practical maths fun,” said Miss Smith. “It was nice to be out of school doing maths instead of being in the classroom,” said Oliver.

On Wednesday 5th of June a teacher from Deer Park came into do maths with Year 5/6. Some of the questions he did were quite challenging whilst some of them were easier but they were still tricky. The first activity was to ‘guesstimate’ the height or weight of a famous landmark or an animal or something. For example, you had to think about how tall big ben is. Before we knew the answers, we had to compare two different landmarks, for example, which is taller, big ben or the London eye? It was funny when people got really far off- one group thought that the world’s longest nose was 70cm long!

On Friday Year 5/6 got into their groups and brought the stalls that they were designing to life. There were many different activities that they organised: guess the name of the teddy, guess how many sweets in a jar, beat the goaly, cake sale, sweets, loom bands, book marks, pompoms, shoot the targets. Year 5/6 were set a challenge by the teachers: to make as much profit as they could from £1 each. They were in groups, so if they were a group of five then they had a budget of £5. Everybody contributed to their stalls, and the event was a massive success. In the end we raised £291.55 to go towards something for y 5/6 that they will vote for.

I really enjoyed setting up the stalls and going round them as well. My team did guess the name of the teddy, darts, mini meringues and guess the metal. It was fun and I enjoyed going round the stalls – Isobel

All in all Maths Week was a roaring success and we want to do it again. It would also be great if some of the spirit of maths week crept into our everyday maths!

 

 

 

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