The Maths on the Move workshop diary is filling up. Ten new workshop days have been added this month across three states. Riverlands Region in South Australia is responsible for six of those because the district is offering our new six day Engineering 'aha' Moments K-8 program to its schools. Check the link on the left to find a space in the diary for your school or district.
Two new cameos this month.
- Making Triangles explores different types of triangles by using rods of four different lengths. Sorting and classifying is the initial focus and students discover sets such as scalene, isosceles and equilateral triangles. The problem extends into finding all the triangles which can be made with the given rods.
- Fraction Magic Square builds on the classic magic square problem and leads students to see how new, and apparently more difficult, magic squares can be created from it.
Read about these Tasks of the Month in Task Cameos in the Iceberg Information link on the left, or click on a photo to go straight to printable information about the task. Add the printed files to your Cameo Collection. There is a cover page for your collection in the Iceberg Information link.
Ian Lowe, Mathematical Association of Victoria Professional Officer, is currently preparing some professional development material for the Education Department. He is including some Task Cameos and some Maths300 lessons to help illustrate the Principles of Learning & Teaching (PoLT) document. In the process he has needed to create PDF files of some of our Cameos. These have been donated back to the site and included as a link at the end of the Cameos for Tasks 2, 6 -- 11, 30 , 34, 35. Thanks Ian.
Task 235, Tables For 25, has been added to the catalogue. It derives from the work of Ian Edwards, Luther College, Croydon. Thanks Ian. It revolves around the familiar context of a class of students sitting in groups. The teacher wants groups of a certain size and adds a condition like ...and at least two boys in every group. If you know the size of the class (say 25) and the number of boys in it, how many ways can the groups be made, and how do you know when you have found them all? The problem opens into any number of investigations by:
- changing the size of the class
- changing the 'at least' rule
- exploring the possible equal size groups which can be made for a given class size.
