Maths at Home Newsletter Vol 1 24-04-20

Maths Week Newsletter Vol 1 24-03-20

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Hello and welcome to the first edition of the Maths at Home Newsletter.

In response to the Covid-19 situation we are making resources available for pupils that are at home during the school closures. We will have daily activities that teachers can share with their pupils and activities that parents/ guardians can easily manage. Parents/guardians feel very pressured that they have to act like a professional teacher and these activities are designed to relieve that pressure.
The MathsWeek team are continuing to work remotely and we will produce this newsletter every Monday for the duration of school closures. If you have any feedback on how we can support education during this difficult tome please let us know. You can reach us at mathsweek@wit.ie or through social media.

These resources will be available on our website www.mathsweek.ie and offer a fun way for students to engage with each other while also practicing mathematical proficiency. They should also be of interest to adults and parents. These recreational maths activities are a great way to keep the brain sharp, learn and have fun.

Go to MathsWeek.ie

Daily Schedule

8am Targetboards open
9am Activity of the Day
12pm Maths Challenge
1pm & 1:30pm Daily Maths Puzzle
5pm Maths at Home info

See details for programmes here

Maths Activities

Today's Puzzle

There's lots of puzzles and mathematical things to do on our website, check out our daily puzzle here:

Go to Todays Puzzle »

maths activity of the day

Every day we are adding activities that you can do at home, for regular updates visit our website
LINK to Activity »

Follow us on social media each day for updates:
Facebook: @MathsWeek
Twitter: @mathsweek
Instagram: MathsIreland
LinkedIn: Maths Week Ireland

Daily Maths at Home Schedule

8 am Daily Targetboards open, closing at 8pm

9 am: A maths ‘Activity of the Day’ using household materials. Please share your children’s work using the hashtag #MathsAtHome and check out the hashtag to see other’s work and interact with them.

12 pm: A Maths Challenge – this activity will have your family searching for mathematically interesting items. Share them on social media and tag some friends to get them involved too! We start today with TRIANGLE TUESDAY post your triangle pics on social media with hashtags #mathsweek #mathsathome #TriangleTuesday

1 pm & 1:30 pm: A ‘Daily Maths Puzzle’ to develop flexibility in mathematics. The License plate game: We hope you will become as obsessed with this game as we are!

5pm: So many educators are releasing interesting and informative articles, webinars and resources that offer advice on how to engage students during the coronavirus outbreak. Each day we will share one and give details on how to apply it to maths learning.

Target Boards:

We will be opening Target Boards for the duration of school closures. Target Boards are a great fun way for your class to practice arithmetic. They won’t even realise they are working!
You can register for a class code and share the link with your class or with parents the code will work each day. It’s a great way to engage students and get their competitive streak working again!

You register for the Maths at Home targetboard challenge and you will be emailed a class code.
Check out the instructions
There are demonstration exercises available all the time, there will be two new active boards open each day,
Go the "Schedule" to find the active targetboards.
The idea is to come up with as many expressions using the numbers on the board and the operators to make the target number.
The top 10 teams will display on the leaderboard.
*** You can also register and play as an individual ***

Covid-19 and Maths in the Media

Peter Lynch's recent That's Maths article in the Irish Times explains how "Mathematics now plays a vital role in combating the spread of epidemics, and will help us to bring this outbreak under control."

R ead article here

Comedian, writer and broadcaster Colm O'Regan explores how maths is used to understand pandemics with the starting point being Junior Cert/ GCSE maths
R ead article here

Growth Mindset

Parents/Guardians are very pressured feeling that they have to fill the role of the teacher without teacher education and years of classroom experience. We would like to reassure them that they can help greatly by doing some activities with their children while giving them encouragement. They may have had negative experiences in school themselves and its important that that does not affect the next generation. We have some advice to share with them on how to get some problem solving and mathematical thinking into the daily routine. The Maths Week Problem Solving Philosophy is very much underpinned by the concept of a ‘growth mindset’. Having and developing a ‘growth mindset’ about maths is a key element in succeeding at maths.

You might like to share this approach with parents: see more at our parent's page

Free Family Maths Activity Booklet

Our friend and regular contributor Douglas Buchanan has brought out a free book on his website dcBeagle.com https://dcbeagle.com/

Maths Week Ireland, Calmast, STEM Outreach Hub,

Cork Road Campus, Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford

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