Maths has been our main focus this week in P5a. We have been learning all about position and direction. At the start of the week we got out our Atlases during IDL, where we had to locate where the Rainforests were in the world. We used our knowledge about using a non-fiction book to help us locate this information in the Atlas. One of the children spoke about co-ordinates and was able to explain to the others what a co-ordinate was,  the other children were then challenged to find a main airport and provide the co-ordinate for it.

We then started to think about the language that we could use to give someone directions, what the children came up with was amazing, things such as; co-0rdinates, 360, 180 and 90 degrees, clockwise, anti-clockwise, full, 1/2 and 1/4 turn, left and right, backwards and forwards and the 8 compass points. We used our new language skills to write direction of how to get from one point of a map to another. We took our learning outside and we had to direct each other from different points in the playground using all the language that we had learned. We quickly learned that when blind folded we were unsure as to what direction N,E,S and W was and we had to change our language, we all had great fun.

We have also been learning how to ask good questions in maths. Miss Anderson and the children had to use their questioning skills to find out what the number was and the only answer could be yes or no. Some of the good questions that were asked were:

Is it an odd/even number?

Does it have 2/3/4 digits?

Is it a prime number?

Is it a multiple of?

The children were then given the opportunity to work with a partner and get them to ‘guess’ the number. This is a great game that can be played at home to improve questioning skills.

Hope you all have a fantastic September weekend.

Miss Anderson