Peak Trail Blazer - Great work everyone!

Peak Trail Blazer 2015 on PhotoPeach

How many seedlings are in my vege patch?

How many seedlings are in my vege patch? Year 5 girls on PhotoPeach

Fruit Kebabs - Room 5 and 7

Fruit Kebabs - It's all about sharing on PhotoPeach

Making fruit kebabs - Room 6 and 8

Making fruit kebabs - Rooms 6 and 8 on PhotoPeach
Hi everyone,
We wanted to share our learning with you.  Over the last few weeks we have been exploring fractions and equal sharing.  Before we made kebabs we had to share the fruit out between the 9 people in our group.  Sometimes we got a whole pieces of fruit, or more than one of each fruit. Other times we only got a part, or a fraction of the fruit. We are strong mathematicians who are learning to show and represent our thinking in different ways.  You will see from the photo's how we use equipment, equations, pictures and relationship charts to help justify our thinking.
We had so much fun and the fruit kebabs were delicious!

 

Fruit Kebabs and equal sharing - Year 4

Fruit Kebabs and equal sharing on PhotoPeach

Learning multiplication and division facts together

Making connections between multiplication and division on PhotoPeach

Make 10 on a 3X3 array

Make 10! on PhotoPeach

Year 3's making toast. Can you find fractions in the toast?

Year 3's making toast and noticing and wondering about fractions on PhotoPeach

<iframe width="445" height="296" src="http://photopeach.com/embed/13f1xg2" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Year 4's making toast and noticing and wondering about fractions

Toast and equal shares on PhotoPeach

So what makes a task rich?

So what makes a task rich? on PhotoPeach

The next masterchefs - Year 5

Doubling the recipe on PhotoPeach

Help! I can't remember the code! Year 3-4

Help! I can't remember the code! on PhotoPeach
This was a rich acivity for reading and writing numbers up to 1000.  Lots of discussion took place related to Place value....what is the value of the 0.  Can it be at the beginning of the number...how much is it worth in the middle/end of the number?  If the code is between 500 and 800 could it be 450?  If the number onely has one zero....could it be 600?  Look for the clever number patterns we created as we tried to solve this problem!

 

The maths in making chocolate brownie - Year 3's

Making Chocolate Brownie on PhotoPeach

Year 5...thinking flexibly using quick images

Quick images is an activity that encourages students to use groupings flexibly to determine how many there are in total.
The image above and below is shown for 3 seconds...in those 3 seconds these were some of our noticings -
I saw an array of 5 along the bottom and 4 up the side - that is 5 groups of 4...
I saw 4+4+4+4+4...I knew that 4+4=8...double 8 is 16....16+4=24
I saw 2 groups of 10...2X10 = 20
I saw 2 groups of 8....8+8 or 2X8.....that equalled 16 + 4 =20
I saw 5+5+5+5....5,10,15,20...or 4 groups of 5...that is 4X5 which equals 20

What did you see and how would you represent and discuss your findings?

Quick images provide rich opportunities to useflexible groupings,
opportunities to discuss our thinking and what we visualised
opportunities to represent our thinking in different ways
opportunites to use maths language

The Year 4's investigate temperature and thermometers.

We are looking at the maths and number when looking at temperature and the thermometer.

We had to use our skip counting in 2's to read the temperature.

When we put the thermometer in hot water the mercury increased to over 90 degrees celcius.

The temperature in the freezer dropped to -4 degrees.

What do you notice?  What do you wonder?
Look at the actual temperature, 11.8.  It is a decimal.  11 whole numbers and 8 tenths.  This means the temperature is more than 11 degrees but not quite 12 degrees.  How much will the temperature drop overnight?  

Number detectives look for tidy tens - Year 3/4

We are number detectives who search for tidy tens! on PhotoPeach

Maths is about creativity and making sense.

How many numbers can you create using the 4 digits 8,7,6,2?

This student found 24 possible combinations...do you agree?

Can you see how this student has created a system or pattern to cover all combinations.  How would you work the problem out?

Let's take the maths further - chocolate crackles - Year 5

So what is the maths in baking? on PhotoPeach

Chocolate crackles - Year 3-4

What is the maths in making chocolate crackles - Year 3-4 on PhotoPeach

Reading numbers to 100,000,000

Reading numbers to 100,000,000//mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/14f67eef2ff7eb1a


Reading numbers to 100,000,000//mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/14f67eef2ff7eb1a

Click on the link to hear us reading numbers to 100,000,000
We all took risks with our learning and we did make some mistakes.  It was OK making mistakes as it made us stop and think more deeply about how to read the number correctly.

Year 3 number detectives

We are number detectives.  We found so many numbers all around us.  Number detectives use the numbers to help solve problems.  The also use the magic of 10 to help them count large numbers. Look how we used the magic of 10 to help us!

Number detectives on PhotoPeach

Risk - Learning about face and place value.

This week the Year 5 girls have been learning the game below called risk.  They have become so skilled that they are now playing it by making and reading numbers to 100,000!  This is a great game to play at home.  All you need is a pack of cards and some paper to mark out place value houses.  The girls will tell you the names of the rooms in each house.

A game called Risk... Learning about face value and place value.

Who can make the largest number?
Take a card and decide how much is will be worth - 5...50...or 500
Once you decide on its value, you can't move it! That's a risk!
Take another card...decide how much it is worth 2...or 200?
What is the last card...6.  Put it in the 100's house...600

My number is 652...
You get dealt another card...and can choose to change any card....
The last card is dealt but before you look at it you need to decide which card it will replace....thats a big risk!

What happens when you change the place/value of a number...

What is the largest number you can make?

How many different numbers can you make by changing the place of your 3 digits.

Put your numbers in order from the smallest to the largest number.

What numbers could you create if we added more digits?

Year 5's discussion around what strong mathematicians will do and say when the learning gets tricky!

The Year 5 girls discussed what a maths session would look and sound like if they were working hard to reach a high level in maths.  Below is what they came up with-

Maths Week - tips to keep students motivated and thinking mathematically

Marvellous, magical, magnificent maths week

Maths is a buzz!  During maths week the children had the opportunity to estimate jellybeans in a jar, the number of weetbix Mr Stygall, Mr Harris and Mr Kinsey could consume in 2 minutes, how long Mrs Cameron would take to run around the field and how many people could fit inside Mrs Burns’ car?  On Friday everyone had the chance to dress up in something “mathematical” and wow – what amasing mathematical concepts and costumes people created! The maths was fun and had purpose - what great motivation for learning! 

When you visit an HNP maths class you will have seen that there is much more to maths than just remembering times tables and doing sums.  While these are still very important, your child also needs to be able to see patterns, to locate themselves and find their way, to know about the shapes that make up the spaces around them, to measure things, to tell the time, and to understand graphs and figures that are so much a part of our world now.  Above all, they need to be able to use the maths they know in everyday situations. 

Jo Boaler, a professor of mathematics at Stanford University, is nationally acclaimed for her research into effective teaching and learning of mathematics.  She is an inspiration for many teachers and parents.  At HNP we have taken on board many of her findings, resources and ideas that have been proven to inspire and excite students about mathematics. 

Her tips for parents in supporting their children to think mathematically and to be excited by maths are as follows-

Helping with maths at home

1. Encourage children to play maths puzzles and games. Award-winning mathematician Sarah Flannery reported that her maths ability and enthusiasm came, not from school, but from the puzzles she was given to solve at home (Flannery, 2002). Puzzles and games or anything with a dice will help kids enjoy maths and develop numeracy and logic skills.

2. Always be encouraging and never tell kids they are wrong when they are working on maths problems. Instead, find the logic in their thinking because there is always some logic to what they say. For example, if your child multiplies three by four and gets seven, say ‘Oh I see what you’re thinking; you’re using what you know about addition to add three and four. When we multiply we have four groups of three.’

3. Never associate maths with speed. It is not important to work quickly, particularly in the younger years, and we now know that forcing kids to work fast on maths is the best way to start maths anxiety for children, especially girls (Boaler, 2012).

4. Never share with your children the idea that you were bad at maths at school or you dislike it, especially if you are a mother. Researchers found that as soon as mothers shared that idea with their daughters, their daughter’s achievement went down (Eccles & Jacobs, 1986).

5. Encourage number sense. What separates high and low achievers in primary school is number sense, ie having an idea of the size of numbers and being able to separate and put numbers together flexibly (Gray & Tall, 1994). For example, when working out 29 + 56, if you take one from the 56 and make it 30 + 55, it is much easier to work out. The flexibility to work with numbers in this way is what is called number sense and it is very important. My book The Elephant In The Classroom: Helping Children Learn And Love Maths shares ideas of ways to develop number sense in younger and older children.

6. Perhaps most important of all, encourage a growth mindset, ie the idea that ability and smartness change as you work more and learn more. The opposite to this is a fixed mindset, where the idea is that ability is fixed and you can either do maths or you can’t. When children have a growth mindset, they do well with challenges and do better in school overall (Dweck, 2006). When children have a fixed mindset and they encounter difficult work, they often conclude that they haven’t got what it takes to do maths. One way in which parents encourage a fixed mindset is by telling their children they are clever or smart when they do something well. That seems like a nice thing to do, but it sets children up for difficulties later, as when kids fail at something they will inevitably conclude that they aren’t smart after all. There is a pervasive cultural view in England that some kids can do well in maths and some can’t. Parents believe this and some teachers believe it too. This is completely wrong and one of the biggest reasons that maths is a traumatic experience for many children in England.

- See more at: http://yano.co.uk/2012/05/dont-let-maths-muddle-you-2/#sthash.Zst0V6Hu.dpuf

Your support is important and appreciated.  Together we all make a difference.

Click on the posting below to view the fun of our maths week.

Maths Week at HNP

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YciFD-KowbzqBKx1_NOAlLTIiljlhHvzALEQWb7DHgI/edit#slide=id.g645c38af2_0_148

Maths week was so much fun!

Yummy Pizzas

Yummy Pizzas on PhotoPeach
We had so much fun creating and making out own pizzas.  We rolled out the bases and prepared the toppings.  We had to divide the toppings up so everyone got a fair share.  Depending on how many people wanted a topping determined whether the whole was shared into thrids, quarters, fifths or sixths.  The pizzas were so yummy!

 

Mini Olympics - exploring fractions and decimals

Mini Olympics on PhotoPeach

Data Detectives

Data Detectives on PhotoPeach

It's not hard (Averages song)

Paper plane maths challenge

We are designing a paper plane that will fly the longest distance.

A vey busy production line!

We discussed variables that could affect how well the plane will fly - wing span, nose design, length of body...

What distance did your plane fly..We measured the distance in metres and centimetres -.they ranged from 0.3,  5.67, 9.30,  11.00 metres
Decimals....interesting!

We are going to adapt one of the variables to see if it affects how far the plane can fly

The ultimate winner Year 5/6 boys

The boys decided the ultimate winner would be the person who's 5 scores had the highest total.

We then worked out what the average score for each boy was over 5 games.

Bhanu was the winner in both instances.

Great wondering boys!

Race to 100

Race to 100!  Start at 0.  Toss the dice.  +1 or +10?

Add the amount to the total.

Use the equipment to help.

Keep a tally of your score.  Who will be the first person to 100?

Volume and Capacity

Litres and Millilitres

Weight and Capacity - Chocolate Crackles

Chocolate Crackles on PhotoPeach

Weight - Year 4

We are learning to read how many kilograms we weigh.  We learnt that this number is a decimal.  The dot is called "point"...
twenty nine point 0.

What does the 5 mean...thirty two pont 5...the 32 is a whole number and anything right of the point is part of a number ...a deciamal or a fraction.

There are lots of numbers in between whole numbers.  Can you see where 33.5 would be on a number line?

It was fun estimating how heavy thought we were.