1. Welcome!
2. Premium Bonds
3. Maths
Outdoors in KS1
4. BCME 7
5. Chocolate!
6. Special
Exclusive Offer for Subscribers.
1.
Welcome to the
March 2010 Newsletter!
Dear Maths
Friends- Happy World Maths Day, and welcome to the March newsletter. February was a busy and exciting month,
culminating in some ‘maths on the run’; I mean this
quite literally, as I was calculating whether I could complete the Tonbridge Wells Half Marathon in under
2 hours in torrential rain. As I was running round the course I spent a fair
chunk of the two hours doing calculations in my head! To find out whether I
made it or not, you will have to visit the blog…
Whatever
you have planned for today, I hope it goes well.
Remember
that thanks to the generosity of HP Calculators, subscription will remain free,
and there will be occasional offers made ONLY to subscribers. This month, see
item 5 for a very special subscriber-only offer for, and watch out for next
month’s newsletter for details of a completely free and exclusive offer of my
new book coming in April – it will be for sale on the products page, but
completely free to you!)
Finally a
MASSIVE THANK YOU to those who so generously responded to my appeal for
sponsorship for the homeless and vulnerable people, for whom I am trying to
raise funds for the Charity Off The Fence. My target
of £ 10 000 is now £ 200 closer thanks to you, but if anyone else would like to
contribute I would be hugely grateful. Even if each of us who subscribe gave
just £3 that would reach the £10 K target, so thanks in advance. The link, to
get the money straight to the charity, is www.justgiving.co.uk/andrew-jeffrey.
Bless you
– have a good month.
Be Well,
Andrew
2.
I Won the Premium
Bonds!
Don’t get
too excited, I won’t be retiring just yet. My investment last year resulted in
a massive £25 prize. Mrs J and I promptly took our children out to
lunch to celebrate. The meal cost £26.50, making Premium Bonds a
less-than-fantastic investment.
However,
it did start me thinking about what a rich source of mathematics they might be.
After all, with interest rates quite low at the moment, is it worth it,
statistically speaking, buying Premium Bonds? As it happens, there are ways to
calculate this exactly. Those of you who teach in KS3 or KS4, or even studying
stats for KS5 students might be interested in the following website:
http://www.nsandi.com/products/pb/shareprizes
It sets
out all the prizes to be won, how many there are, and it would make a terrific
homework project or group project to calculate the chances of winning the
jackpot. Focus question: Are Premium Bonds a better investment than the Lottery, and how low would interest rates have to be to make
the Premium Bonds a better bet than a fixed-rate savings account? Enjoy!
3. Maths Outdoors in KS1
I was at a
lovely school earlier this week, who wanted some help to maximize the use of
their outdoor area. With the help of a couple of friends, here are a few of the
things we came up with. Thanks to Claire Roberts and Janet Sayers for their
suggestions.
2-D
shapes: Have
plenty of shapes made from laminated coloured card stuck around. Make sure (and this is really important) that they
do not all have horizontal bases, as this causes confusion later on. Be sure to
use regular and irregular polygons to extend their understanding.
Counting: Have lots of
laminated big numbers. Low ability children can lay the out in ascending order, others could perhaps lay them out in descending
order. HAPs could even lay out odd and even numbers. When they are in order,
children take it in turns to throw a big foam dice and move along the line the
appropriate number of steps. Once they have the idea, you could even have two
teams going if you wanted to make it a competition.
Capacity: Make good use of
the sand and water tray. Have plenty of containers with the capacity clearly
marked on (1 litre, ½ Litre etc.) There doesn’t always necessarily need to be
much structure to the children’s play, just get them used to the various
measures by filling, pouring, comparing, and so on.
Money: Hide lots of
different copper coins in the sand, and ask them to find all the 2p coins, for
example. Or, ask them to find exactly 4p. Or 7p. How
many different ways can they find to
do this?
Floor Games: There is a myriad of games that can be painted on the floor.
They don’t even have to be permanent – playground chalk allows you to put down
temporary ones, for example number mazes. Here is a webpage with some
information on how to build one.
Look at the Framework
and identify some other ideas that could be incorporated. For example, why not
consider number line snakes, sorting circles (e.g. use of lines and hoops
leading to Carroll and Venn diagrams),
clock faces, and more.) Remember that a
clock face is in fact a numberline, which is an
important but sometimes tricky concept for children to grasp.
If you already have a hopscotch layout – can the children count out loud as they go up and back?
How many different shapes can they find in the natural environment? Can they match them to the laminated ones?
What numbers are visible on signs and elsewhere?
What countable things can they find? And how many of each?
If you use Numicon, can children match it to the coins in the sand?
Flowerpots: Could they have numbered labels on, and then contain the right number of objects?
Can they play skittles and keep score? Using a few skittles and two rolls each, they have to add to find their ‘total’.
Measuring in feet (their own, not imperial measures). They can start to get a feel for length, and even for perimeter.
Squares on the ground can be viewed from different angles; try drawing some out in different colours, which overlap, or which are at various angles. This will get them used to the idea that a square is a square, whether or not it is turned round – often children labour under the misapprehension that ‘proper’ shapes have to have a horizontal base, and this can help.
Visit http://www.lotc.org.uk/
for more ideas and case studies.
4. BCME 7 (6th – 9th April
2010)
It doesn’t
happen very often, but when it does it is well worth attending. Every now and
then the various mathematical organizations manage to put aside their
differences and have a joint conference – the British Congress of Mathematics
Educators. This year it is being held at the University of Manchester. This
is the biggest must-attend event in the maths calendar.
I am very pleased to be delivering a couple of sessions over the four days, one
on Primary Problem-Solving and one of Creativity in the Secondary Curriculum.
Do come a say hello if you’re there! I have free gifts
for all attendees (ssssshhh…!)
5. Chocolate!
From an
idea mooted at the MA Primary Committee: as Easter approaches, here as promised
is a great activity to help children think about fractions. Put a slab of
chocolate on one of the tables in the classroom. Put two slabs on a second
table, three slabs on a third and so on up to about 5 tables. Ask children to
come in one by one, and sit at the table. Explain that when all the children
are in, they may share the chocolate at whichever table they are sitting. Now
sit back and watch the calculating begin! My friend Lynne McClure recommends
big slabs of Galaxy which have exactly 60 pieces – a conveniently large number
of factors…(The promised 7x table trick will have to
wait until a future issue!)
6. Special Offer for Subscribers!
I have
decided that for all bookings made by April 1st for the forthcoming
Summer Term only, I will DOUBLE the payments I make to schools as part of the
book deal. That means that a visited school whose pupils order just 50 books
will receive £100!
Please
note that this offer is ONLY for you, to say thank you for being a subscriber,
and it is ONLY for bookings made this term for visits in the Summer Term 2010.
Sorry I cannot make exceptions to these terms – I did once, and got into all
sorts of mess trying to be fair to everyone!
**************************************************
That’s it
for this month. Next month I will have a great activity to do with chocolate
courtesy of my friends on the MA Primary Committee (other than eat it, and yes,
it’s suitable for a family audience). Added to that, I’ll show you a really
nifty trick to get the 7x table sorted!
Thanks yet
again for being a subscriber, and remember, if you
enjoy the newsletter, please encourage others to sign up at http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/newsletter.asp
AJx
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