This has nothing to do with today – which was mostly spent making spreadsheets for some assessments, alongside some of that teaching lark. I love the work of Matt Henderson, who posted this on his blog yesterday evening: A Reuleaux triangle is built from three circles. As it rolls, its height is always the radius of one […]
Key points: The article discusses how algebraic equations can be shown as visual sentences. The example of x+y=4, where x>y is used. The Reception aged children are given two rules to colour them in: “they have to colour in four snails, and the number of brown-coloured snails must be more than the number of yellow-coloured […]
Key points: “Early algebraic thinking in a primary context is not about introducing formal algebraic concepts into the classroom but involves reconsidering how we think about arithmetic.” “arithmetic thinking focuses on product (a focus on arithmetic as a computational tool) and algebraic thinking focuses on process (a focus on the structure of arithmetic) (Malara & Navarra, […]
After Study Block 1, taught session 2, we were given a reading to look through and digest. We were given Chapter 5 (pp. 79-104) from “Children’s mathematics 4-15: learning from errors and misconceptions” by Julie Ryan, Julian Williams. (McGraw-Hill International, 2007) The mistakes children make in mathematics are usually not just ‘mistakes’ – they are […]
The discussion at our last MaST meeting about parallel axes of reflections lead me to think about this a lot. And it wasn’t until I sat down with some paper and drew things that I could see it clearly. At the last meeting, we looked into exploring reflection using a skipping rope and children mirroring […]
Tomorrow, I work with Year 3, completing some of the activities that were so successful with Year 6. I plan to introduce the session with a secret construction, along similar lines to the one made at the start of last Wednesday’s lesson with Year 6 – a simple house like structure using only a couple […]
On Thursday I followed up Wednesday’s work outside by taking it a step further. My Year 6 pupils were asked to create mini versions of our large circle using wool and paper plates. I had pre-cut the plates to have a range of evenly distributed and more random slots around the edges. Pupils were then […]
I’m not entirely happy with the way yesterday went. For a start, we didn’t manage to fit in everything I had originally expected, which stops me from trying out all three activities with the small group as planned. Also, the group had grown by two to thirteen, making it a little on the large side […]
The NCETM has a series of tools for analysing how confident you feel about various areas of mathematics. Part of the MaST programme requires me to complete each area over time. I also have to complete the sections for a range of Key Stages – 1, 2 and 3 – to demonstrate a broad knowledge […]