This week 50 of our UKS2 children took part in the Primary Maths Challenge. The children worked individually to answer tricky questions. They really used their tough tortoise skills to engage all of their Maths knowledge and we are so proud of them! We look forward to seeing if any children get through to the next round!
Year 4 are learning their conceptual times tables at the moment! This is completely different to the rote learning they do daily using the Clare Christie method. They have been exploring different arrays for a given number and representing these using counters. What a fantastic way to recap that learning of grouping and sharing!
It’s not just the adults who get busy with manipulatives at ACE – on Wednesday at staff training we were all exploring some upper key stage 2 Maths in a practical discussion. We are always working to make sure our children have engaging, exciting and interactive lessons.
6P were making links between fractions, decimals and percentages this week – recapping key Y5 learning, whilst in the throes of our Y6 Fractions unit. As a class, we had in-depth discussions explaining our answers using reasoning, which the children thoroughly enjoyed. In the pictures, the children were having a ‘prove it’ challenge in pairs, proving that 125% = 1 1/4 = 1.25.
In Year 3 all of our children have chess lessons every week supporting them with their strategic thinking and positional language. The benefits of chess both from a mathematical thinking perspective but also a cultural capital one are numerous and varied. Hopefully your children can come home and beat you hands down! Mr Van Loo loves to take some of our budding chess players to compete in London – could this be you one day?
It’s been amazing to welcome our new children into school this week and welcome back lots of old faces. I’m pleased to report that many if our youngest children are already such keen mathematicians. We’ve been getting very physical and hands-on with our maths in provision this week.
We’ve been back exploring 3D shape this week and we enjoyed building some of our 3D shapes out of playdough and lollipop sticks. So many good discussions about the difference between rectangles and cuboids and how best to support the ‘struts’ of our structures. Is it a cone if there’s nothing supporting the base?
In our revisiting of 3D shapes and as part of our traditional tales exploration we used different shapes to make Rapunzel’s tower. We only managed to get to 15 cubes, cuboids and a cone as a whole class but one group managed 18 shapes in their later provision exploration. Lots of good discussions about rolling on curved surfaces and stacking. When comparing ‘cones’ and ‘pyramids’ it helped us to think about which one might be nicer to eat an ice cream out of!
Year 5 were treated to a very exciting, hands-on afternoon today coordinated by Mr Magnall our sustainability lead and Aqua Consultants (engineers) as part of our 18-month Royal Society biodiversity project. The children worked on 4 projects across the afternoon: building hedgehog houses, bird boxes, insect hotels and composting. There was plenty of opportunity to get involved with the power drills, hammers and saws and the children were fantastic at following instructions and working collaboratively. Who knew there was so much Maths in building… from measuring, angles, shape, depth we discussed so much throughout the afternoon.
