Following on from my previous blog post which was about maths in sport, during my research and reflection for this blog post i came across the Millennium Maths Project. The Millennium Maths Project is an education initiative designed for children aged between 3 and 19, created by that mathematics and education departments of The University of Cambridge. The main focus of this project is to increase mathematical confidence, enjoyment and understanding by using  imaginative and creative approaches to maths. Between 2015-2016 the website received 43 million page views from users worldwide, as well as 15,000 pupils and 4,000 teachers getting involved with face to face event and activities.

Maths and Sport

Originally to celebrate London Olympics 2012 the Millennium Maths Project created free online resources and activities for their maths and sport project. These resources include rich mathematical activities, articles and video challenges which are aimed at students from ages 5-18, and are arranged based on the 5 key stages within the English curriculum. These activities are designed to develop problem solving and mathematical reasoning in a creative and fun way. There is also a collection of activities based on maths in football which are in collaboration with arsenal football club.

Here are a few examples of activities aimed at children in stage 1(5-7 years) and 2(7-11 years).

After looking at how maths is applied within sport, and how this can then be used to teach or develop maths within the classroom, these activities look very useful for doing so. Also after finding out more about this project and what it aims to achieve, i think this is a great, useful and engaging resource that i will certainly consider using in future placements and once i have my own class.

The Millennium Maths Project also has various other divisions such as the maths and sport project, these include:

• NRICH – this provides free mathematics enrichment resources for age 3-19 as well as teachers, which are designed to build confidence,  mathematical reasoning and initiative through problem solving.
• Plus– this is a free magazine online, aimed at readers age 16+. This covers a variety of topics and theories such as do parallel universes exist, as well as uncovering the hidden maths behind headline news stories and mathematical research news.
• Wild Maths– this aims to encourage mathematical creativity, curiosity, exploration, discussion and discovery. It involves identifying patters, making connections and looking at things in new ways based on what you already know. This provides rich and open-ended resources – mathematical activities, games and investigations aimed at 7-16 year olds.

I feel like this project ties in to a lot of the things we have discussed and looked at throughout the discovering mathematics module, such as creative maths and sports in maths. Both of which i have discussed in previous blog posts ‘can maths be creative?’ and ‘maths and sport’ (Dillon, 2017). I am very interested in the aims of this project and feel very strongly that using creative approaches to maths can help to develop understanding and confidence, so i feel like this resource could be extremely helpful to use within classrooms or to help develop these skills as well as enjoyment while teaching and reinforcing maths.

Resources 

Dillon, R (2017) ‘Can maths be creative?’, Rebecca’s Teaching Blog, 21 November. Available at: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/rdeportfolio/2017/11/21/can-maths-be-creative/

Dillon, R (2017) ‘Maths and Sport’ Rebecca’s teaching blog, 27 November. Available at: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/rdeportfolio/2017/11/27/maths-and-sport/

University of Cambridge (2017) Millennium Mathematics Project. Available at:  https://maths.org/ (Accessed: November 2017)