Next month will be the 15^th Maths Week across the island of Ireland and we are not about to cancel it because of Covid19. In fact, we're putting a lot of work into making it accessible to all schools.  
You can get involved in a Covid-safe way through

All are available at our website. We have lots of options for every age so that you can choose what best suits you and your groups. You can also develop your own activities.  
Already we have almost 80,000 registered from all over the island. Make sure you register and show your school is a Mathstastic School. 

By filling in the registration form you will be in with a chance of winning one of five high spec tablets or a set of IZAK9 cubes for your school

During the Lockdown from March to July Targetboards ran every day, with thousands of pupils playing and practising their arithmetic. 
Targetboards will run during Maths Week with a junior and senior board each day. 
The class works together to find as many ways they can of making up the target number using the numbers given on the board.

 

The Hamilton Walk cannot go ahead as usual with Covid restrictions. 
In 2006 Maths Week was established around "Hamilton Day", the 16 October. For, it was on this day in 1834, while walking from Dunsink Observatory into Dublin City that William Rowan Hamilton in a flash of inspiration scraped a formula into the wall of Broome Bridge on the Royal Canal. In 1990 Prof Tony O'Farrell (Maynooth University) established the Hamilton Walk to celebrate this event that is known to mathematicians all over the world. We are working to present a virtual walk that all can enjoy on Friday 16 October. Keep an eye on the Maths Week website and social media for updates. 

This year Galway Atlantaquaria are taking their Maths workshops to the beach! During this tailor-made workshop students will be engaged in investigating symmetry, measuring, comparing & ordering while exploring the wonders of the seashore in a non-contact nature. Students will then discover the numbers behind marine litter, learning how long they take to break down and subsequently, will complete a 2 minute beach clean to help protect the local environment.
Students will work in small groups, or their pods from school while working on the shore during this Maths Workshop. As the weather in Ireland is very unpredictable, a backup workshop can take place in the aquarium with a limited group size.

A sad story was reported this month about a man and 110 cats that were evicted from an apartment in Spain. It claims that the man took in a pair of cats 3 years ago and all the cats descended from those.  
Is it possible that 110 cats came from 2 cats in 3 years? Can maths help us find out?

We go back 800 years, meet Leonardo of Pisa and find a useful starting point for our model. 
We can also learn something useful about the modelling of COVID
Read all about it here

DCBEAGLE Challenges
Douglas Buchanan
www.dcbeagle.com  dcbeagleb@gmail.com

Welcome to the new academic year.
 
Let us have an open-ended start to the year!
How many times in your career have you collected the marks of the mental test in the first week of an academic year?
Punch: “3 wrong miss.”
Judy: “7 wrong miss.”
The first approach to negativity towards maths! Would the atmosphere be different if the solutions are open ended or you do not mark anything “wrong”?
 
It is difficult to convince colleagues, parents and the inspectorate when they see examples in books not marked except for the “ticks”. My approach was to question the pupil about their error and in many cases asked them to do it again to receive a tick – not a “correction tick”. Other times I would ask them to do a similar example. Positive reinforcement.
 
Opening Minds with Open Ended Math Problems
“Noah saw 18 legs pass his office door. What could the animals be?”
 
In the detailed article in the website, Model Teaching, it covers the following topics:

 
There is also a booklet giving many examples of open ended problems
 
There is also a comprehensive guide of activities and investigations from the Hamilton Trust. If the activities are the property of the Trust they ask you and / or your school to subscribe. Many of the tasks are from other sources.
 
“Maths was my favourite subject today, Mummy, because I did not get anything wrong!!!”
 
Puzzle of the month
 
Buying turkeys
A man bought a number of turkeys at a cost of €60.00, and after reserving fifteen of the birds he sold the remainder for €54.00, thus gaining 1Oc a head by these. How many turkeys did he buy?
 
Numerical phenomena – divide 1 by 998 001
Using Calculator.net’s Big Calculator insert:
X = 1
Y = 998001
Precision: 5996 digits
Click on X / Y
What do you discover? More at the end of the newsletter.
 
Finland
Finland has one of the most successful education systems but what makes it so successful?
 
There are no standardised tests
From the age of six, students in the UK are tested to assess their academic capabilities. But in Finland, throughout the course of a child’s education, there is only one test that is mandatory -- the matriculation exam -- which comes at the end of vocational senior high school.
 
Homework isn’t as widely used
Statistically, Finland issues a lot less homework to students than most countries on earth. Though it is a myth that there is no homework at all, most of the education happens in the classroom. Which is, after all, where you would expect it to happen. This is built on a mutual trust between teachers, students and parents. Parents especially know that their kids are being taught by the brightest people in society. So they back whatever happens when their children are in the school environment. In Finland, home time is there to develop soft skills, gain life experience and foster close family bonds.
 
Source: Celsian Education
 
Video: Why Finland has the best education system in the world
 
Activity of the month
 
Use the digits 2, 0, 2 & 0 and any operations to make a value from 1 through to 100.
 
This is an ideal open question exercise and it could be a communal effort with pupils putting solutions on wall charts. There will always (I think!) be more than one algorithm for each value. Do take images of your charts and send them to me!
 
Website of the month - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/
This website has a comprehensive array of activities for all subjects in the curriculum and caters for the age range of 3 to 14 year olds.
 
Puzzle of the month solution
 
BUYING TURKEYS
The man bought 75 turkeys at 80c each, making €60.00. After retaining 15 he sold the remaining 60 at 90c each, making €54.00, as stated. He thus made a profit of 1Oc each on the 60 birds he resold.
 
Numerical phenomena – revisited
You will discover all the values from 1 to 999 are in numerical order except 998 is missing!
 
Maths Week Ireland – 10 to 18 October
We are all aware that the focus will be trying to give the best education in these unusual times and time is the essence. If you are looking for inspiration for maths week do visit the following websites or if you are desperate do contact me.
 
https://www.mathsweek.ie/2020/ ; https://nrich.maths.org/ ; https://dcbeagle.com/mathslinks.html ; http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/ ; https://www.mathsisfun.com/