As I was on my own, I decided to go with coordinates.
We had a couple of new explorers and Max was back for a brief visit. We started with introductions and got people to suggest favourite numbers. I told everyone mine was seven
It started well and everyone got into the game that used an A-Z like grid with letters on the x axis and numbers on the y-axis. To start with some of the kids knew how coordinates worked, others picked it up after one or two turns and some continued to think of letters as the square just above them. It would be good to do that again or leave as a diy activity.
The next directed activity got kids to visualise a number line. I stood in a position that I called 7 and showed them 10 and then another position and checked what they thought that was. After a while I asked them to find other numbers such as 20 or 5. I got someone to find 0. When we were all lined up I checked what they
thought would happen to the left of zero. Some of them said minus numbers but not all were ready for that. I went in between zero and one and got responses of 1 and a half and zero and a half most agreed with zero and a half.
We moved on to a number line game that used two dice and had teams compete to get the counter to move to their end. Green dice moved the counter in a negative direction and blue in a positive. They played this well and we carried on until a team won.
I tried to move on to a similar game using an x and y axis to combine the two activities that we had done so far. It needed more instruction and modelling than I think is good for maths explorers so I brought that to an end and got them to explore whatever they wanted.
It was good to see M and I get on with exploring. They asked for different activities and really just explored so well. I wish I had got a chance to see I work on the tantrix again. M designed an impressive golf course and lead the activity really well. He tried a design with lots of holes to start with and realised that it wouldn't work and so changed it. He also included sandpits that had other features. H had been practising Hex it seems and is now pretty good. I tried some strategy
with her but that takes some time with Hex. N and L never have a problem finding something to do and this time created snakes and ladders on a whiteboard. The new explorers struggled a bit more at this time. It would be good to develop a few intro activities that all new explorers try to induct them into choosing activities at that time.
The golf game was a good ending but I'm not sure how well the waiting for everyone to play goes.
We could have two different courses in future. Or maybe the watching others' moves is good. I think the waiting was a bit too much though.
A development point is definitely the passport and maybe some kind of map of activities. The territories could be strategy, number sense, shape properties, measure, and the main maths explorer qualities. Or maybe it should work that you get a stamp having showed enough of all 5 qualities for a territory?
We had a couple of new explorers and Max was back for a brief visit. We started with introductions and got people to suggest favourite numbers. I told everyone mine was seven
It started well and everyone got into the game that used an A-Z like grid with letters on the x axis and numbers on the y-axis. To start with some of the kids knew how coordinates worked, others picked it up after one or two turns and some continued to think of letters as the square just above them. It would be good to do that again or leave as a diy activity.The next directed activity got kids to visualise a number line. I stood in a position that I called 7 and showed them 10 and then another position and checked what they thought that was. After a while I asked them to find other numbers such as 20 or 5. I got someone to find 0. When we were all lined up I checked what they
We moved on to a number line game that used two dice and had teams compete to get the counter to move to their end. Green dice moved the counter in a negative direction and blue in a positive. They played this well and we carried on until a team won.
I tried to move on to a similar game using an x and y axis to combine the two activities that we had done so far. It needed more instruction and modelling than I think is good for maths explorers so I brought that to an end and got them to explore whatever they wanted.
It was good to see M and I get on with exploring. They asked for different activities and really just explored so well. I wish I had got a chance to see I work on the tantrix again. M designed an impressive golf course and lead the activity really well. He tried a design with lots of holes to start with and realised that it wouldn't work and so changed it. He also included sandpits that had other features. H had been practising Hex it seems and is now pretty good. I tried some strategy
The golf game was a good ending but I'm not sure how well the waiting for everyone to play goes. We could have two different courses in future. Or maybe the watching others' moves is good. I think the waiting was a bit too much though.
A development point is definitely the passport and maybe some kind of map of activities. The territories could be strategy, number sense, shape properties, measure, and the main maths explorer qualities. Or maybe it should work that you get a stamp having showed enough of all 5 qualities for a territory?
We'll look at curves and straight lines again next week. See if we can get tasks that they can work on independently or in pairs with an exploratory nature.
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