Maths at Home Newsletter Vol 8 18/05/20

Maths Week Newsletter Vol 8. 18-05-20

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In this weeks Maths at Home Newsletter

Preview of Daily Maths Activities
What's On
Bealtaine Living Earth
Daily Schedule
Teacher's Choice
Targetboards

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another issue of Maths at Home newsletter. As usual we have loads of appropriate resources to help parents, teachers and pupils in these difficult times.

This week our hands-on maths activities will all have a nature theme as we partner up with Bealtaine Living Earth festival. The festival is online this year from 16 – 24 May and incorporates International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May, Each day we will be encouraging families to get out and explore the nature on their doorstep and to practice maths while they do so. We would love to see how you recreate these rich mathematical resources using objects you have in your home. See below for more on the festival.

Go to Livingearth.ie

Maths Week Ireland Daily Schedule

8am Targetboards open
9am Activity of the Day
12pm Maths Challenge
5pm Maths at Home info
7pm & 7:30pm Daily Maths Puzzle

See details for programmes here

Preview of Maths activities scheduled for this week:

This week our hands-on maths activities range from symmetry to statistics and will include problem-solving elements that will have the whole family engaged!
We would love to see how you recreate these rich mathematical resources using objects you have in your home. Share with us through social media.

Daily Maths Activities

We bring you a new maths activity of the day each morning on our Maths at Home Activity page.

Monday:
Today’s maths activity will have children applying their knowledge of statistics as they carry out a bird survey. It will be a great introduction for the bird walk Bealtaine Living Earth Festival has organised for Tuesday.

Tuesday:
Activity will have children apply their maths skills of measure and statistics to monitor biodiversity (the variety of life around us). Students will apply methods that mathematicians use – They will take a random sample and measure the abundance of various species in two different habitats They will compare their results and consider why the levels of abundance and diversity are so different between the two sites.

Wednesday:

We celebrate World Bee Day. We have a symmetry activity which brings maths and art together. If you have water-based paint, paper, and a scissors you are ready to go.

Thursday:

We will have secondary school students thinking mathematically as they design their own biodiversity garden. This type of activity will deepen their understanding of the mathematical concepts of measure, trigonometry and statistics as well contribute positively to their wellbeing as they get out into nature.

Friday:

We will share a Nature Scavenger hunt with a focus on biodiversity. This fun activity is great way to get children excited about maths and nature. Children will have to look for certain materials found in nature, count them, record their results, and communicate their analysis.

Follow us on social media each day for updates:
Facebook: @MathsWeek
Twitter: @mathsweek
Instagram: MathsIreland
LinkedIn: Maths Week Ireland
Get in touch, give feedback, why not share your ideas and resources?

Teacher's Choice

This week’s teacher’s choice is from John Stafford, vice principal at Andrews Memorial Primary School in County Down. John has been teaching for nearly 30 years and has some great recommendations below:
If you would like to contribute here please email us at mathsweek@wit.ie

“For 15 years I was a Numeracy coordinator. I was very fortunate that this coincided with a time that I would describe as a ‘golden age' of curriculum support in our Education Service. As a consequence, I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a wealth of materials from the 'Maths Team' at the time. It's testament to their ingenuity that the materials are still being enthusiastically gobbled up by pupils years later.

This particular favourite of mine, 'add one, minus one' is so simple in essence, yet challenging at the same time. It is perfect for the upper end of the primary school. All you have to do is add one then take one away. What could be simpler? So, have fun! They're free to use, but offer up a 'thank you' to Ian, Robert and Lynn who created this and many other resources whilst also guiding me on my way as a novice numeracy coordinator.

They also managed to point me in the direction of NRICH website. Yes, there were websites even then! It's a mine of activities and challenges and is still a 'go to' when I need a class challenge in a hurry. Enjoy exploring!”

If you would like to recommend a maths book or website then please email us at mathsweek@wit.ie – We would love to hear from you!

What's on

From 16 – 24 May the Bealtaine Living Earth Festival will be running online. This will be the 16^th year of the festival celebrating our Living Earth, its biodiversity and our natural heritage. The festival will take place online.
Details are available on www.livingearth.ie and https://www.facebook.com/bealtainebiodiversity

In this time of reduced movement, Calmast, the organisers hope to encourage people to appreciate “Nature on our Doorstep” and to discover extraordinary things in ordinary places. There will be activities and resources for people to appreciate more of what’s around us and daily online events featuring visitor centres that we can’t presently visit.
Aligning with this, next week’s activities will focus on Maths and Nature.

MoMath is pleased to announce a new program to keep your minds fresh! Sign up now for Mind-Benders for the Quarantined! and each Sunday, MoMath will send you a challenging mathematical puzzle from the collection of our own puzzle master, Dr. Peter Winkler.

On Tuesday, you'll receive a subtle hint; on Thursday, a serious push; on Saturday, the solution.
And the next day, of course, a new puzzle.

20th May

Living Maths, a STEM based NGO based in South Africa, is now offering their famous maths enrichment and extension classes online. They are inviting Irish primary school students from the ages of 5 to 13 years to participate. Parents will be comforted with the knowledge that their 25 years of experience, coupled with their exemplary reputation of teaching in top schools in South Africa and around the world, would make them a great choice of online extra mural for your child. You can express interest in the classes and then Steve Sherman will get in touch with further information https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f--77kn6S0CeO5m_uAMcB7ly6mARqtSSOhYEJ31VxOM/edit

The PDST Post-Primary Maths team are offering school visits on a range of topics to suit your school's needs.

Sign up on www.pdst.ie/schoolsupport to apply. With Maths Week on the horizon, now is the perfect time to get support from a PDST PP Maths Advisor.

We also have a limited number of spaces available for Sustained Support. You can find more information on Sustained Support in this flyer.

Daily Schedule

See Maths at Home for more

8 am: Daily Targetboards open (see below)
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 and sharing them. Today is to find Movie Titles with Numbers
5pm: . Each day we will share an Afternoon Resource recommending websites, informative articles, webinars and resources that are useful for engaging students during the school closures.
7 pm & 7:30 pm: A ‘Daily Maths Puzzle’ to develop flexibility in mathematics. The Licence plate game: There are plates each day for North and South

Targetboards

Target Boards:
Can your class get on the Leaderboard?

Target Boards are proving to be quite popular with some schools during Lockdown. There have been over 13,000 answers submitted since the beginning of April .
Target Boards are a great fun way for your class to practice arithmetic. Even if you don't make the leaderboard it's still great fun. 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! Players go to the Targetboard schedule and click on the active board.
We will publish the daily leaderboard at 3pm everyday on social media to show how the competition is going.

Follow us on social media each day for updates:
Facebook: @MathsWeek
Twitter: @mathsweek
Instagram: MathsIreland
LinkedIn: Maths Week Ireland
Get in touch, give feedback, why not share your ideas and resources?

Maths Week Ireland, Calmast, STEM Outreach Hub,

Cork Road Campus, Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford

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