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News

May 2012

In this month's News you will find:

Tasks of the Month
Task 160, Painted Cubes
Task 201, Rectangle Fractions

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Potato Olympics

We don't have to tell you that the London Olympic Games is not far away. But did you know that potatoes are amazing athletes. They can...

Sumo Wrestle
High Jump

Long Jump
...and much more. The mathematical opportunities for collecting, recording, displaying and interpreting data, measurement of length, time and more are immense. The potential for cross-curriculum work in literacy, art and ICT is extensive.
And now Anne Mullans, St. Patrick's Murrumbeena has supplied a captivating little video to stimulate student (and teacher) interest in a whole school event. You just have to watch it. See Link List below.

Puzzle Olympics

If potatoes aren't your thing - and even if they are - a different way to celebrate the Games is to make your task collection work harder. The Mathematics Task Centre provides everything you need to use your tasks as the centre of a whole school (or single class) Puzzle Olympics.

A list of suitable tasks with scoring.

Lesson plan based on trial school experiences.

Suggestions for making medals from old CDs.

A slide show to open the event.

Photos from primary and secondary trial schools.

...and more.
See Link List below.

Body Shape Geometry

These teacher trainees for Years 0 - 3 at Högskolan Malmö, Sweden are exploring shapes and their properties using all or part of their bodies.
From here they explored making three dimensional objects from newspapers and 3d Geoshapes. There is heaps of support for this investigation in Maths300 Lesson 107 Newspaper Shapes. See Link List below.

Crossing The River 1

A special note has been added to this cameo to remind us that the simplest algebraic form of an equation may not be the only way to represent the problem. In fact, depending on your reasoning process it may not be the way that makes sense. Take second look at the cameo from the Link List below.

Snakes & Ladders

Can you believe that the good old game of Snakes and Ladders could be the source of an extensive mathematical adventure. Well it is and the 'how tos' have been recorded in the latest Maths300 lesson of the same name. Students explore key design principles of the game then become game designers to create a game that not only looks good, but delivers elements of surprise and choice. The companion software allows students create their own version of the game and test how placement of snakes and ladders on the game board alters expected and theoretical outcomes. See Link List below.

Tasks of the Month
Two new cameos this month.

Painted Cubes is visual algebra in 3 dimensions or number patterns in a table, depending on your preference for learning. It encourages the mathematician's question, Can I check it another way?, has links to isometric drawing and includes a wonderful PowerPoint report from a Year 8 in England and work from a teacher trainee in Sweden which tweaks the problem into Year 12 algebra.
Rectangle Fractions offers a model for representing fractions which makes addition and subtraction of fractions understandable. It is based on the geometry of rectangle - all rectangles are partitioned into equal parts by their rows, columns and cells, so adding two fractions can be modelled by choosing the appropriate rectangle to represent one fraction by the rows and the other by the columns. The cells are the common denominator. The cameo includes several links to supporting activities.

Click a photo to access its cameo, or access all current cameos through the Link List below.

Keep smiling,
Doug.

Link List

Potato Olympics Video in Cube Tube (scroll down)

Puzzle Olympics

Maths300:
Newspaper Shapes and Snakes & Ladders

Crossing The River 1 (scroll down)

Task Cameo Library (160 tasks listed)

Did you miss April News?
If so you missed information about:

Professional Development at Work

Working Mathematically with Infants Workshop

More on Squound

Menu Maths Packs: Teachers' Notes

Maths300 Software

Iceberg Information about two Tasks of the Month
(Tasks 147, 236)

...and more...

Did You Know?

You can find tasks coded by Year Level and Curriculum Strand in the Task Centre Catalogue (PDF file).

The Activities link of Calculating Changes offers Content Finder & Year Level Finder tools.

Our Site Map acts as a Table of Contents to help you find what you need in Mathematics Centre.

You can search for lessons by Year Level, Curriculum Strand, Lesson Features & Keyword at Maths300.

You can connect Tasks to their Maths300 companion lesson using Tasks & Maths300 (a PDF file).
Excel version provided by Pymble Ladies' College

All these links, and more, appear in Working with Mathematics Centre (a PDF file).

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