Evaluation - session 5 - place value/number systems

We explored something behind the ideas of using place value as a number scheme and the effect of different place values or similarities and differences.
We started by listing all of the coins or notes that can be used in the UK. Explorers listed as many as they could on paper. I had examples of each of them and so I laid them out in a tabular form with different place values being in rows and the first digits being in columns (1, 2, 5 are the only first digits in current UK money.
I asked why and we looked at how easy or difficult it is to count in those numbers (1, 2, 5 and 10, 20, 50 etc.)  compared to other numbers.
From there we went on to see how the base 10 number square organised these tables and noticed that they were all in columns but non coin/note values were all over the place.
I moved on to getting explorers to create a little book of different place value based number squares.  Explorers went for it in a very exploratory manner. Quite a few parents were on board for this class and helped out. This was really useful and might be a good way to set up a session.  A particular family learning type session where I set up activities, resources and challenges and give some advice about how to let children explore and how to encourage them to go further.

It gave me a chance to work with some of the more reticent explorers which showed me the importance of a part like this in every session.  I would need to think about what I could do with those explorers who have no problem doing whatever comes into their head but don't check how they are doing.

The extension task was quite engaging and even parents seemed intrigued by it. They had to create one for base 12.  Explorer C61 did fantastically (with the help of R98) and managed to complete the table, refusing to give up until she did!

Evaluation Session 4 - Place value/Number systems

Did this session achieve its aims?  I'm not sure how well defined the aims of this session were. Much of the planning is something like a sculpture.  I start preparing activities without fully seeing the kind of experience I hope to create.  This continues into the sessions where I am always hoping for inspiration to help determine the next step.

We started by looking at the numbers that form the sequence of powers of 2.  Some of the explorers new about the game 2048 and so could say something about that and others could work out other interesting things to say about them.  Many others did not contribute.  I wonder what is best in these situations.  A think-pair-share routine might be a good thing to use for these parts.  Or think-pair-group-share. This could be linked with a badge acknowledgement system.  Contribution is not for everyone and it may be that allowing people not to contribute is just what they need.  Exploration must happen outside a comfort zone but by what means should someone get there.  And which part of the comfort zone should they be outside?  All of it?  unlikely but for the most hardened explorer and then that is probably just a different comfort zone.
I digress.
We went on to use the numbers in a slider game something like 2048.  This worked well and I noticed that girls and boys had very different approaches for this game.  Not surprisingly, boys tended to be competitive and girls collaborative. (or maybe that is surprising).
It worked well for all the groups and they managed to achieve at least up to 32 on each table.  The idea here was to get used to doubling these numbers and understanding their value in relation to each other.
We went on to look at exploding dots 2 to 1.  The challenge was set.  What is the maximum number of cubes that you can put in the system so that no cubes are pushed out side of the grid.  Google exploding dots to see how it works if this makes no sense.  There were still issues using this idea butt quite a few made good discoveries (including the set up discovery that any time there was just one cube, it corresponded to the numbers from the game.  That would have made a good challenge question.  What numbers end up with just one cube somewhere in the grid?
from there we looked briefly at the binary calculator and how to calculate to and from binary.  To give explorers a chance to use it, I set up some codes using the ascii grid.  Explorers tried to create some codes and two of them broke my code.
A varied and active session, with games, challenges and questioning
Almost a model maths explorers session.

Place value session 3 - evaluation

What did I expect on going into this session? Some of my concerns were the amount of instructions needed for Explorers to be able to benefit from the tasks. As a group, they aren't the most attentive. I realise that M28, P79and R2D are far more likely to stop and listen attentively. Cat and joy pick things up excellently, as they did today if they're in the mood for it. 007 is on and off. If c61 is there, she's always involved. The littler ones need a more instruction drill, drill type of approach which may mean either that they should be doing less involved tasks or that they are not ready to explore. Our founding principal is that everyone is ready to explore from birth but not all ready to be influenced in this direction.
The games session started with draughts and different forms of chess. There was limited choice but everyone was engaged to a degree. The little ones used the pieces as play things and fought each other. I wanted to influence their actions but I was unable able to.  For me it would have been good to get them using the moves if not strategies. Maybe a knight's move challenge or chess solitaire would have been good.  Suicide chess may have worked also. It was great that the older ones tried all the games even though the rules changed a bit. Should have brought and set up "Go".

The place value session had a healthy dose of chaos added to the mix. We started with finger signed numbers which would be good as a regular feature.
We looked at the sequence of powers of 2 which were well known to those who played 2048.
Moved on to Exploding dots. The task was to find out how many would end up in the 4th 5th and sixth positions. Most had big problems sticking to the method. Gq8 and m28 did it really well. And discovered everything that had been set up to discover. But what next for them?
It was a useful way for the others to try the drill to learn the system. I can make it optional next time with others using  the binary converters. I'll set it as homework.
My aim is a comparable place value system. Ideally we would be able to compare them using our abacuses or something. It would ready them for Base 12.
Next week, converting to and from Binary and Base 5 to Base 10. Set up a spy system using ascii so that they can decode a message.

Points, lines and shapes 1 evaluation

Perpendicular!

The Brixton sessions have a very different character to Tulse hill. We are in our own room so no one can see what we do and we can use the space much more as we like.
My plan for floor space has on occasion led to other ideas for activities much like today's block and roll idea.

It was very much a workshop style session today.  We had some nice elements such as the parallel/perpendicular call which should be a feature.  One explorer called out regularly and others started getting into it at the end.

Finding parallel and perpendicular examples in the room was ok but would have been much better in the playground.

The triangle investigation was not as thorough as I had thought it might be but I misjudged the time it took.  We didn't get many doubles ( I think two explorers did a different 7).  But it would be good to mock up a few straws on 7, 8, and 9 and see if they can get more than one triangle by moving them around.

We talked a bit about the history of right angles and historic ways of creating them.  I hoped to get on to creating a grid on the floor using parallel and perpendicular lines but didn't get a chance to do that.  Instead we played block and roll using paper.  This was quite a good way to do it though as it was a better place to introduce the game.  They can practise online and we can try to create the grid next week.

We didn't get to use rulers but we started to see the use of set squares and we can use set squares that we make ourselves.

Games focused session evaluation

One of the challenges I face in this and perhaps all of the sessions I facilitate is to figure out my role in the growth process. Both of the sessions this week gave me an opportunity to reflect on this aspect. These are some of the roles I picked out.

Challenger
Ideally I would like my main role to be to set challenges that take care of themselves. An Explorer gets a vision and embarks on the mission. This was most evident in the straw challenge where the initial challenge was set and then they went off and tried different things to achieve the tallest tower possible.

Setting the challenge with the rubik's snakes to create a square worked well in this regard.  On Saturday E and J discussed ideas about why it could or might not be possible

Ideas board

Our twin explorers are fantastic and so advanced for their age.  And so different. Chatting about ideas with Will was very cool.  None of them were very mathematical but they were linked to the activities at least initially.  But it gave me a chance to see more about his way of thinking and I assume it gave him more of a chance to be heard and find out something that was relevant to the moment.

Encouragement
this is mainly in the planning of the process of the session.  I am trying to gamify the workshop to the extent that explorers try a range of activities and review what they have done.  I am attempting to do that by a levelling up scheme where comments are reviewed and both reviewing and having well reviewed comments gets explorers points that lead to levelling up.  Still in progress.

Authority
We had problems this week with a couple of explorers going a bit wild before I got there.  It is fairly clear that it is getting close to the time when I'll have to move this session on to another venue as there we are quite limited there and it's clear that it is becoming a strained relationship but that's another point.



This is a strange role and one I'm exploring as I need to be able to influence some of their decisions about exploration but many of them clearly would not accept if it went against a decision that they have already made.  This is a good thing up to a point and I need to make sure that I distinguish that line.

To Provide examples
We started by playing split 3 ways on paper.  This was not a problem for many of the children but some needed help getting some numbers to start playing with.  Once they had the idea that I could help them to get numbers to play with, those that needed this were comfortable asking for this help and would then get on with playing the rest of the game.  I gave examples some times as a demonstration with blocks, sometimes working out the answers and sometimes just checking

Games Focus
I think that focussing on games development is a really useful way for me to see these sessions.  I don't need it to be the explicit focus for explorers, just to be there as a way of framing my planning of the session.  It will be useful to see how it works for this term.

Multiplication session 5/4 - Evaluation

This was a key session in the course and really the pinnacle of the programme. The idea of multiplication being a relationship between numbers is a difficult one to see and so not easy to explore. 

I wanted to make an activity that forced them to think in terms of multiplying numbers and that also might lead to the project idea of representing primes as parts and composite numbers as completed products.  

To encourage this idea, I tried a few things:

We looked at characteristics of different multiples and how tables of multiples are symmetrical.  We looked at other tables that linked characteristics and asked about why the central diagonal didn't have symmetrical doubles.

We explored the patterns made by times tables in a 100 square.

I restricted the numbers to only the "friendly" primes.  We explored the numbers created using 2, 3, 5, and 11 only.  I called these the friendly primes because they have easily discoverable patterns in a 100 square.

I recommended the playing the app Alchemy that involves mixing base elements (Air, fire, water, earth) to make all kinds of compounds.

We started the session in Brixton using cards that had prime factors in the form of coloured dots on the back.  I used this as a way to remind everyone about the colours introduced last week and to get questions and observations.  The first two observations were about the card with 3 red dots (8 as it is 2x2x2) and three green dots (27 - 3x3x3) on first encounter, everyone assumed that they should be 6 and 9 respectively.  I half explained half left them to figure it out.  It would have been good to have some strategies for that.  Even if I had just explained the homework rule that they can only use the numbers from the dots and the times button.  That may have still caused them to think 2 x 3 instead of 2x2x2.
I don't think it was a big problem anyway.  E and N went on to get the concept very well as did the rest of them I think.  One or two didn't really get past the times tables on 100 square that we did last week but reinforcement of that is a good thing.  I think the way C20 understood it afterwards was one of the best moments as he often does not get our activities or draw his focus away from whatever it was on but today he did a lot of the prime map and also asked questions about what he was doing and checked with me regularly.
An activity that was very helpful for setting this one up was to create number system using the 100 square.  We added blocks corresponding to the colours for that number.  I started off with this one just letting them do what they wanted but had to work more strictly to get a good outcome.  I took the board away and asked if they thought they could find some cards and  then build a tower with the correct colours and number of blocks.  They all got on well with that.  transferring it to the paper copy was a little more difficult.
I tried a 2048 style game at the end but I haven't thought the rules through sufficiently yet so I'll try that another day.  One thing is that I should leave out the miss a go part as too many goes were missed and that made the game too slow.

Session 4/3 evaluation

 It came to me about an hour before the session and proved to be a really useful resource for working with a hundred square. I could see it being used for all kinds of number square investigations.
The basis for this week's exploration was understanding how the multiples of certain primes are distributed over the hundred square.  As has become a feature of this programme, I wonder how much meaning explorers are able to fix onto maths like this. Nevertheless, we are committed to providing experiences that allow children to explore ideas in as many ways as possible.
We started with colour coded cards and wanted to see if our explorers could break the code.  Those who were there succeeded in saying lots of things about the possible links with colours and numbers.  Many noticed times tables and combined times tables.
We discussed prime numbers and what I called friendly primes. From that we worked on colouring a 100 square using the same code.  This is a way to start explorers seeing the patterns.  I should have started with 11 with this one though as many of them got the idea from the 2 times table that they all just go down.  and without any more thought proceeded to colour the numbers in, in columns (rather than the diagonal line of squares.
This was on top of the templates that revealed the answers if help was needed.
This session was also an opportunity to get to know some of the boys a bit more.  One of them had been asked to try colouring in the 2 times table.  He just said that he didn't want to do it.  His mum checked in with him and told me that he didn't know his two times table.  This was a bit of a revelation (as he is very able mathematically) but now I think back, I have excused playing up as boredom rather than inability.  This will be an important aspect of the sessions to master.  When to offer support. I imagine it will be whenever someone doesn't want to do an activity.  It works very differently with others of course.

 We had quite a good game to finish up.  We started with all the colour code cards colour down.  I threw the 2, 3, 5 and 11 cards up and asked explorers to find cards that had the same colours as those that had landed colour up.  It was a bit of a dash with explorers turning up every card that they could. rather than figuring it out from the numbers.  Little by little I suppose.

 I don't take in homework in maths explorers sessions but this week, one of our explorers had really looked at the missing multiples game on Nrich.  She went through lots of levels and really figured out how it worked.  I should find a way to get more homework in or talked about or recognised.  Hopefully with the project this time round.  I've set homework to find all the numbers under 100 that are built using friendly primes.  I must remember to send out a reminder.

multiplication session 5/4

The penultimate session.

Look at multiplying with lattice method.

bring in the idea of characteristics being transferred to the product and thus new factors (e.g. something with a factor of 3 multiplied by a multiple of 5 will definitely have 15 as a factor - why?)

Unit endings always the same with etc.

introduce the idea of a symbol that is a digit.  I can do this with a simple multiplication and then a slightly more complicated one.  I could also produce part of a hundred square (or a whole hundred square with shapes rather than digits.
This may be quite a jump for the littler ones of course.  They will need some more consolidatory work on multiplication and what it actually is.

This idea of cycling cards might be worth thinking about.  If it could be done wiht multiplication and the analogy (or an analogy) it would help give a lot of examples of what I had in mind for the project.
If I could get the coded timestables into a more hands on activity that shows up the letters for what they are (they could put numbers on top of the appropriate symbol and then of course add the same number to all the other symbols of that kind.
If the numbers were cut out like the lattice numbers it would reinforce the tens units and that system.

Brixton - Session 1

Based on the experience of the Tulse Hill sessions and the fact that two (or 3 as I later discovered) explorers from the first session booked I decided to start with the second of the two session that I ran in Tulse Hill.
There were two benefits to that.  First, it was a much more engaging session and clearer aims and things to take away.  There was room to think quite deeply about some of the things that the activity threw up but also the chance to just work on times tables and practice.
I had not prepared enough for young people who were not to be able to do one of the times tables.  I don't know what stopped them as it was possible to copy from the card sorting activity.  As always, I forget how little meaning any of these things have for some of the children.  This is one of the issues that needs figuring out.  Explorers are encouraged to come up with ideas and observations.  I don't it is a problem if they are not able to check their observations though.
Anyway, the card hunt was a popular activity.  Explorers laid out the found cards and started to find ways to work with them.  The discussion in this period is a real asset to the session and it would be good to find a way to make more of this by, for example, recording one or two quotes each day.  May be a small group activity where they tell me what.
Linking the times tables to the unit circles was not a straight forward start even the second time round.  It is a strange concept and I can only imagine what someone would think if they didn't have the firmest grip on timestables, each as a kind of entity themselves.
I didn't get on to the numberline multiple hopscotch or lattice method.  I think they would be good towards the end of the course as a way of reintroducing the ideas we looked at in the beginning.

Multiplication session 3/2

Multiplication grid poker
Multiplication table jigsaw
Cuisenaire rod challenge
Times table charts area based
Properties table game - must find
Coded multiplications activity
Challenge using unit circles grid with cells corresponding to various numbers based on intersection of particular tables
Project start and discussion

Prime factors 2, 3, 5, (11) - multiplication session 4/3

The key idea here is to start noticing when numbers have prime factors of 2, 3, 5, and possibly 11.

Activities
Guess the prime factors game - I could start this as a game of pelmanism and explorers have to turn over cards with no more than one difference in colour coding - I can ask about what they think the colour coding is.  It would be a good activity to ...
Organise them into a grid (just two of the colours maybe)
100 square sieve - explorers can colour a corner of the numbers in a hundred square to show which
prime factors they have.
breaking numbers down into prime factors - division of numbers or just look into calculator method.
Grid game with attributes - think of attributes such as human, lion, etc as being numbers.
Project - create a system that could be used to show prime factors of numbers
example resource linked to Alchemy with air, water, fire and earth being 2, 3, 5, 11
create a tarot like deck of number cards that people have to guess which number each one is given the clues
Create a set of numbers that explorers must take if they want to work on it.
Discuss if we want different systems.
Need for a system with lots of possible base elements (primes)

multiplication 2 - Tulse Hill - Evaluation

This session worked really well though was not without its challenges.  I think the pace and variety of activities was well balanced and all of the activities were quite achievable.  I was probably right about two sets of the cards being helpful.  In the first place more cards to find and in the second I could split up big groups as there were more than is comfortably good to make one group for a task.  Anyway, it went ok except for a complaint of two about wanting a particular colour or not being allowed in.
It was a good task as it allowed those with some timestables knowledge to support others and got some conversations going.  It also helped to familiarise them with that style of writing numbers which will help when the lattice method is dealt with.
Moving on to the circles investigation - also a good task but this was the point where some lost the desire to keep doing what I had asked and tried to find their own patterns.
I also noticed that some of them who may not have been sure of their tables shied away from doing this or just did one activity.
It would have been good if some of them could have investigated the circles further.  I should try to think of a question or a challenge such as finding which fives belongs to two different circles. or which circles don't have any 5s ((and why)

I tried to end with the hopscotch game but only one or two were up for it.  Developmentally it was a good game but like all things, it requires selling to the explorers.
lets see what we can change for Brixton

multiplication session 2 - tables

I will start this week with a treasure hunt.  They can go around and find parts of the times table in lattice form.  It won't be the whole thing there will be some missing ( and I'm sure some will get lost).  They will bring them back to place in the grid (colour coded for each times table) and then work on filling in times tables in lattice form.I will need to explain the format prior to the hunt I suppose which may mean a problem for those who are latecomers.  I suppose that would be a good induction into the session.
Discussion - what patterns do you see in each table

We can then try to transfer the numbers to a 100 square.  I may need two sets of all of these things.
It could be good to do this a table at a time and then place them back.  We can then talk about patterns formed and look at patterns with tracing paper and see if they can identify the tables from the 100 square patterns.
It would then be possible to show a pattern for primes and see if anyone can see that they are mainly missing ones.  We'll see about this.

From here I would like to work with smaller groups and give independent challenges to others.  I'll work on the lattice method using the cards placed in a grid.

I would like others to look at digital root circles and unit circle patterns of different tables.  Also they could try the timestable jigsaw

Once we've all gone through the lattice method and have an idea how to do longer multiplication, I will introduce the idea of a symbol that is a digit.  I can do this with a simple multiplication and then a slightly more complicated one.  I could also produce part of a hundred square (or a whole hundred square with shapes rather than digits.

This could provide ending challenges

A game would be good though.  still to think

Resources
lattice type numbers
grid for multiplication
grid for 100 square
digital root and unit circle patterns
timestable jigsaws
small 100 squares
tracing paper grid patterns
puzzles with shapes for digits
large puzzle that uses all digits for a multiplication

Multiplicative relationships - planning

This is a 6 session programme with multiplicative relationships as the focus.  The key learning objectives (evidence based) will be:

Multiplication as relationship

recall of multiplication facts
ability to represent multiplication facts in different ways
organisation of multiplication facts in tabular and possibly other forms
use of keywords (multiple, factor, prime)
decomposition of composite numbers

Sessions 

Doubling/halving & tripling/thirding Multiplication and Division by 10, chessboard problem - big numbers and place value - make sliders

Multiplication table - napier bones, lattice method - cuisenaire/commutativity

Multiplication as area and volume - types of number (prime, rectangular, cuboidal, multiple cuboid, cuboid array) dimensions

Prime factor decomposition  - hundred square analysis 

Number characters - primes as building blocks

Multiplication of binomial - Cuisenaire squares and rectangles

Serpinski shapes
Napier bones/chinese/lattice
multiplication table jigsaw
slide rule
Area multiplication grid
multiplication patterns algebra
Multiplication of tens (twenties etc.)
place value (base 10)
criptarythms times tables
unit circles
digital roots and roots in times tables that coincide

Cuisenaire rods and squares

Arithmagons

Multiplicative session 1 - eval

I did not feel that this session went well.  I can't put my finger on exactly what it was but I can identify a few areas that I would change for next time.  I think as a kind of summary, I needed to think more about hooking them into the activities.  They got started and sometimes engaged but I just started the activities hoping that they would get going and enjoy doing it.  This will not work for everyone.
The starting activity was quite good but had that problem.  I needed to get them to gel as a team for a bit with a simple activity such as find this number.  I could have made the reference to the number simple or complicated.  When they had a direct competitive aspect to it, they all performed better.  There are lots of ways to explore this type of activity.  For example, is it possible to produce a closed loop of 8 cards?  That could be extended.  The problem is why create the loop?  what would be in it for them?  The competitive element helped but not massively. They needed to buy in from the beginning.
I like the idea of the prize with 3 possible amounts but again not enough of a hook.  I think a race would have been better.  They could have had 10 squares and either started with 10000 each day or £100 doubled each day or 1p multiplied by 10 each day.  I could then ask which starting amounts would make this fair.  With a grid or two they could have taken charge of one of them and gone on day by day until the end. We could have compared as a group what happened to the numbers.  That would have led on to the big numbers activity a lot more easily.

It would have been good to have the number words and see if they could read them first and then decide what order they would go in and how many zeros.
I really would need one slider between two also.  Then they could create a number and get their partner to read it off and change partners and numbers and test someone else.  Maybe one each.  It would be good to have a few of them.
It would also be good to start this like I started with M this morning.  Start with multiplying 1 by 10 again and again.  I could also check if they can link it to the scale of the universe video.
I could then try 15 or something like that and do it again.  That way I could have drilled the numbers.  I still need to think about how I could do that with them all as I couldn't lead the whole group in that kind of chant.
The end game was pretty good once it got going.  I didn't get them to find the cards (which would have been good) or read them out except in a few cases.  I could get them to act in teams and give points for the size of the number for example and for reading them out.  The pattern was clearly seen by most also.

Key takeaways
Hooks
think through actual things that will be done in activity and any manipulatives needed
Add competition or collaboration.

Club session - 10 Sep - Eval

There were loads of people this week.  There must have been over 20 in total including the little ones.  It was quite overwhelming and I think an important lesson in how I respond to the sessions and difficulties faced by explorers.
The first issue was that there were a lot of newer explorers and parents who I wanted to get the chance to talk to or induct and that wasn't possible but there were some positive things to take from this.

It was a real buzz of activity.  A lot of the explorers came up with discoveries, solved puzzles and worked through activities independently.  In some cases, the parents got to work with their children in a new way that seemed to be a useful thing for them.  It was just like a club too.  There were lots of interactions, mostly those that I didn't make happen but a few of those I introduced also worked well together.  There were also good examples of people working independently.  R2D was a great example of both.  She went around trying as many of the activities on the sheet as she could and occasionally working with others.
The range of activities and problems associated with the activities were not so well thought through but they provided some good opportunities for the skills and habits that I'm looking to promote.  They were not self access enough to work for newer explorers unfortunately but there need to be some activities like that.  The plan for a map could be a suggested route through the puzzles.  There could be a competitive route and a collaboration route and then each activity could have instructions about how to play competitively or collaboratively or if it just lends itself to one or the other.  This way explorers could come up with other ways to do the task and this might help them see that aspect of the explorer way, to come up with new ways to play old games.

A meeting game would have been good once everyone had their codes.  It could be a challenge for new and more experienced explorers to find the real names of some of the codes for example.  Or I could mix up a few of the characters and have that as a group challenge to see if they can add something towards the discovery of the key people for that week.
The parents and explorers all got together and helped to tidy up.  I don't know what I would have done without that.
Key takeaways

Some kids will form groups naturally, others won't and will need help. This should be a key part to the session
I should look to find ways to help people (parents and children) get through the sessions without my help.
I should think of some parings that I think would work from the beginning and set them a collaborative puzzle to start things off (I would need to be there early for that kind of thing to happen of course)
Set up induction events (once a month perhaps)
Continue work on the self access nature of activities
Continue coming up with ways to get feedback from everyone.
Find a way to introduce a plenary activity that doesn't involve too much talking or listening but gets explorers to say draw a picture of something important or talk to one person to tell them about an activity (think, pair share for example)

Comment stock market

Thu 3rd Sep - club session

One of our busiest sessions.  And even finally after a year or so managed to get our menu idea going in the form of a challenge list.  It worked well for parents and I think that that is an important thing as then they can start to see what's available.   The initiates worked well with this also.  It was a bit harder for those who were not used to this way of doing things and I think that I should employ a guide (another explorer to show and play 3 or 4 activities with newish ones).
There was a decent range of activities to keep explorers going but they did not choose to try all types of activity (maybe a map of activities would be better and then explorers could be encouraged to "visit" each continent).
Prioritising trying and finding some way to record attempts then questions would be good too.
Just started this time with handing out challenge lists and then told them to get on with it.  I should find a way to get them to earn points (which could be stars that they use for the evaluation part).  Competition, collaboration, questioning, talking about an activity (review or observation), helping others, variety of activities etc.  Maybe 5 points per star.  Could be difficult to organise the points but worth a try)
work needed with J and 007 to get them into it.  Linked up with other explorers would be good but no one really in J's range other than the girls (I and J).challenge sheet

Parent's were much more engaged in this as well so a guidance sheet for them would have been good.  Or maybe not but some ideas up my sleeve instead.

Activities that need development.
Hex - the most loved game but difficult to get them to look at strategy development ( and maybe they shouldn't be doing it)
Nim is similar to Hex in this regard.  Part of the issue with Hex especially is that once they've beaten me they don't need to think more about it.
An observations gallery would be really good.  I could laminate and put the them near the activities with the code badge of the observer (or questions/problems).  This would be really good.  I could find a few that have been told to me already and put the me together as examples and then have post its where explorers can tell me or their parents and get it put in a box for that kind of thing. Definitely a development priority for next week (do it NOW!).  This should be one of the tick boxes on the challenge sheet also and then the map could be on the back.