Term 3 inquiry has a focus on maths and individual goals. After my visit from Dinah it really sank home on the importance of using material and creating a real world context with maths. This is not only a fun and worthwhile activity for the children but they can also see results and outcomes in real time. It is fantastic for the kids to explain their understandings before during and after an excercise. They start to make personal connections and start to develop knowledge based on real activities. This is week 1 during a volume and capacity unit.
Week 2 - Volume and capacity
The tasks are getting harder and require a lot more in depth thinking and reasoning skills. They are actively measuring, predicting and estimating outcomes and then attempting the task through trial and error. I already see the affect using a rich task to promote mathmatical concepts. the children enjoy the activities, real maths is being used and the children are seeing the mistake they make in an instant. They then self correct and discuss outcomes.
In this task the children had a 20ml spoon, a yoghurt pot, an ice cream container and a huge pot. Their task was to estimate and find out how much liquid was held in each. They used the 20ml spoon to fill the yoghurt. Then they knew the volume in the yoghurt so they could then fill up the container faster and effectively and so fourth...
Term3 - Week 3
We are starting fractions and I am focussing on using materials as much as possible. This unit is making their own pizza with a particular topping. They make their pizzas and we have been discussing fraction parts and what they look like.
I then give them an order on which pizzas they need to make by combining different toppings. EG 2/8 mushrooms, 3/8 bbq sauce and 3/8 pineapple etc. discuss fractions, relationships and how fractions are added etc. They really seem to be loving the hands on activities and I am seeing a lot of worthwhile discussion
Equipment continued to support understanding.
Our Burger Fresh Inquiry gave us a real opportunity to put Maths skills into practice. We had 224 burgers to make which required the children to count up more than $940 in cash as well as put all class rooms into order. A huge task for the children which they did very well! I had a group of stage 5-6 girls with me for the count up. Other children completed estimates on what ingrediants was to be needed to complete all the burgers
Maths Material Continued........
Measurement TERM 4 - WEEK 1-2
During the first week of term 4 LC 10 has been learning about length and area.
We have started off with practising our basics such as mm,cm and metres. I was really surprised how far back i needed to go due to a huge number of children not knowing their basics.
So we started with the traditional task of measuring things around the room, each other and so fourth.
We then branched outside and measures in metres and came back inside to convert into mm and cm. Converting is very difficult for them to grasp so i made up some converting cards we have done every morning as a fun warm up activity.
For an inquiry approach the children were given the task to estimate, record and carry out an investigation on the playground at riverdale school. They had to discuss perimetr, area and the difficulties they might face when measuring their area. It was a heated competition and alot of meaningful talk arose.
We didnt get a chance to cover area and are still focused on perimeter activities.
