4 More Great Activities for Maths Week England
Maths Week England is back again and this year takes place between the 11th and 17th November. Since starting in 2019, over 11,400 schools and 1.98 million pupils have got involved. Its goal is to raise awareness of, and participation in, the wonderful world of mathematics. Why? Because, like us, it believes a generation that is confident in maths is vital for our country’s success.
At its core, maths is all about identifying patterns, making predictions, spotting connections and solving problems, so this blog will focus on these areas. If you’re an avid Busy Things blog reader, you may remember we’ve done this before, but given we have so many wonderful maths activities to choose from, we’ve selected a different four activities this year. Read on to see what they are!
1. Patterns
Looking for and finding patterns is central to understanding maths and something which we develop from the first days of life. There are patterns and structure in numbers and in geometry.
Our ‘Common multiples of 3, 4 and 8’ activity is a great activity to use to help children understand the patterns within the times tables.
Are there any numbers that appear in the 3 and 4 times tables? Any that appear in the 3, 4 and 8?
Why not try it here? It’s suitable for all children in Key Stage 2 and free to play until 18th November.
Some of your pupils not secure in this knowledge?
Why not use the times tables grid worksheets available in our Resource maker first?
By putting 3, 4 and 8 horizontally and value 1-12 vertically, they’ll be able to see where the same numbers appear!
2. Predictions
Following on from patterns come predictions. Here we look at how what has occurred in the past can help us work out what will happen in the future.
‘Mirror magic’ is a fantastic activity to support this. The children have to decide which shape will make the mirror image of what they see, and then change the size and positioning to help the shape fit.
Feel the need for a little competition? You could challenge your pupils to get the exact match in less than 10 clicks!
Try it here. Again, it’s free to play until the end of Maths Week England!
3. Connections
Making connections within the mathematics syllabus allows children to see how different concepts relate to one another and helps them simplify them in their minds.
Number bonds is an area which instantly come to mind, and our ‘Ordering: addition and subtraction – Level 1’ activity is great for reinforcing this knowledge.
Ideal for 5–7-year-olds, it asks children to recall and use addition and subtraction facts to 20 fluently.
4. Problem-solving
Bringing maths into the real world is vital to help children understand its value and engage with it more. The Bus trip! element of our Time quiz does just that, challenging children to solve word problems involving time.
Which bus should they get on to arrive by a certain time? When will they get off if they get on at 10am?
They’re practical questions great for getting your Year 5 and Year 6 pupils thinking!
Summary
We hope this blog has given you some ideas of activities to incorporate into your Maths Week England programme. Maths is a lot of fun, creative and practical too!
As part of this blog, we’ve included several of our activities which you can play for free from now until 18th November. These are: ‘Common multiples of 3, 4 and 8’, ‘Mirror magic’, ‘Ordering: addition and subtraction – Level 1’ and ‘Time quiz’. To play them, you just need to click on the relevant link!
Want to see more activities?
If you’d like to learn more about our maths activities, why not take out a free 28-day trial with us! You’re more than welcome to have a virtual tour via Zoom too. If you’d like one, contact us here and we’ll get one sorted!