Maths Week 2019

In the week beginning 17 June, the Reception and Junior classes took part in a series of workshops and activities focussed on showing how Maths can be engaging and just plain fun!  A couple of classes recount some of their experiences:

Year 4  On Tuesday 18 June, the Juniors participated in a Maths workshop called “The Coding Box”. First we were put into small groups and we were given a wooden box with lots of Maths clues all around it and the box was locked with a special padlock.  Our mission was to solve the clues in order to crack the code and open the padlock.  Inside each box was another set of clues that we had to solve in order to unlock the next box.

Some of the challenges we faced involved breaking down the problems into smaller steps so they were not very straightforward.  We also had to read lots of instructions to figure out what it was we had to do for each part of the solving activity.  To be successful, we had to make sure to work together, communicate and persevere.  There was a good level of challenge because it wasn’t too easy or too hard.

Year 6  Three pupils in Year 6 described their favourite activities in one of the workshops they took part in.

On Monday 17 June 2019, we went to a Maths workshop.  The best activity for me was “Fill the Hexagon” because we all worked together as a team, however, it was a very confusing task.  We had a hexagon shape board and we had a lot of 2D trapeziums in different colours.  We had to fill the board with no gaps using the 2D shapes.  If two of the same colours touched, we had to start again.  Overall if you complete it, it feels very accomplishing, but if you can’t Lewis (the teacher) would help.

By Luke

When we went in the hall, we were put in groups.  In my group were Ella, Adam, Douglas, Konrad and me.  My favourite activity was the penguin balancing puzzle, where we had penguin characters and a plastic iceberg. We had to balance the penguins on it and we kept knocking them off! They kept on falling because they weren’t balanced equally, so they didn’t stay on the iceberg.  We balanced them by keeping their tails in and at the end they all stayed on the iceberg!

By Isabelle

This week we did a puzzle workshop. During the workshop, we worked on a puzzle where we needed to get multiple penguins onto a plastic iceberg.  But it wasn’t as easy as told. The puzzle was very tricky because you needed to balance the penguins on every side of the iceberg.  With each penguin, the iceberg tilted, which made the flightless birds fall! This puzzle was fun but challenging.  Part two of the puzzle made me feel confused because we could only use our pinkies to put the penguins on.  We focused really well but never got to finish the part two.  Sadly, the time ran out, but it also meant we got to move onto the next puzzle!

By Hudson