Author Archives: Mrs Sinclair

Week of Inspirational Math – One Cut Geometry

This is a mind-blowing activity which had students celebrating the challenge as well as their mistakes!  The goal was to create 2-D geometrical shapes by cutting them out of a folded piece of paper with just one cut.

The class found this challenge extremely difficult to begin with, however, after only a couple of minutes two children had successfully cut a square with only one cut.  Lachlan and Mitchell found two different strategies to this initial challenge.  Tiegan, Charlie and Jack quickly followed.  Well done to all who participated.

Week of Inspirational Math – Game of Totals

This activity was a fun way to develop an understanding of quantity and ways to make a total of 25.  In this activity students had the opportunity to count, add, keep track of totals, and use visuals to see the sum.  Students considered what quantities they would need to reach a total of 25 and also created a strategy for reaching a total before their partner did.

Week of Inspirational Math – Halving

One misconception students often have when learning about fractions is that to half something you must cut it into only two pieces of the same shape.  This task developed the idea of different ways of creating half of a whole.  It allowed students to be artistic and create interesting patterns of their own.  It also allowed students to describe and justify their thinking.

In this task students were asked to consider ways to prove that a square was split in half and also to think of other ways to split a square in half and convince others that it was split in half.