Last week Years 4-6 participated in their first Maths Games and / or Maths Olympiad competition. These two competitions comprise 5 tests taking place between March and August.  Each test has only 5 questions and students are allowed 30 minutes to solve. Each month there are focused problem solving strategies to learn.  Maths Olympiad is directed towards higher achieving students.  The main aims of the competitions are to:

• Introduce students to important mathematical concepts
• Teach major strategies and develop flexibility for problem solving
• Foster creativity and ingenuity and strengthen intuition
• Stimulate enthusiasm and enjoyment of mathematics
• Provide for the satisfaction, joy and thrill of meeting challenges

This year we decided to take the Year 4s on the journey as well.  They were very nervous and needed some convincing.  For us, we want to ensure that students have a range of skills and strategies in their toolkit to solve real world problems and to be numerate.  The focused strategies this month were:

• Draw a picture or a diagram
• Guess, check and refine

These skills apply across key learning areas and in real life.  Please share with your child when and how you are using these skills/strategies. 

Many students have felt a sense of anxiety/stress when it comes to learning Maths. Many fear that Maths is something that you are either good at, or not. What many students struggle to understand is that the beauty of Maths is not so much on the solution but the thinking and creativity that goes into trying to solve the problem. When we focus on results we often forget that understanding is key. We present a routine or memory trick to complete a task rather than honing in on the how and more importantly, the why we do things in a certain way.  Let me explain.  Teachers are noticing that children are doing written algorithms in their head.  This is not a good thing.  They should be using mental strategies. Written algorithms do not even enter the curriculum until Stage 2 and even then, mental strategies are still critical. You do mental maths daily and I presume you don’t construct an algorithm to do it. How we work out how much our grocery items are going to cost us and what change we should have is important. We need to communicate this to our children. We want to focus on learning rather than performing (memorizing).  The most powerful learners are those who are reflective, who engage in metacognition – thinking about what they know – and who take control of their own learning (White & Frederiksen, 1998)

For those with students Years 2-6, I have a challenge for you this holidays.  It is called Crackers and the cards you need for this are in your children’s school bag.

Crackers

Don’t let your child add these numbers using a written algorithm – talk to them about how you would add them.  Does Mum add them differently to Dad, to Grandma, to Grandad?

• Ask a partner to pick a number between 1 and 63 and not tell
• Show one of the 6 cards and ask, “Is your number on this card?”
• If they say yes record the first number in the upper left hand corner of the If they answer “no”, record nothing.
• Show the second Ask, “Is your number on this card?”
• If they say yes record the first number in the upper left hand box of the If no, record nothing.
• Continue until you have shown all 6
• The number your partner chose is the sum of the numbers you recorded
• The goal is for students to record and find the sum of the numbers without pencil and paper, however not being there yet should not keep them from playing or make them feel lesser. They just aren’t there yet!

Task

• What do you notice & wonder?