The children returned from their half term holiday on Monday, full of enthusiasm for MATHS WEEK! The week was all about bringing maths to life, with fun and exciting activities, brain stretching challenges and lots of investigative practical work. This is just a taster of some of the things that have gone on this week...
On Monday, Hedgehogs Class started their week with a trip to the supermarket! They went out in the minbus in small groups, and visited three different stores in Leighton Buzzard and Dunstable, They looked at prices, money, and how numbers are used in a variety of ways when out shopping.
Key Stage One children looked at shapes and investigated tessellation. Squirrels Class found out about fractions by making "pizzas" with paper plates and tissue paper and slicing them into halves and quarters. They then set up a pizza restaurant in the classroom and practiced using money and giving change. Meanwhile, Otters made a lovely colourful fruit stall in their classroom.
Key Stage Two children had a lot of fun with measuring. Badgers Class did a survey and analysis of the wrist, neck and foot measurements of children and adults throughout the school. They went outside with trundle wheels and made a record of various measurements in the school grounds. Rabbits had a messy time, using paint to see how many footprints it would take to cover a metre.
Deer Class researched and created a "Maths Quiz" for Badgers children to do. This took the form of a Treasure Hunt around the school, with children having to do calculations based on, for example, the number of door handles in the building. The children in Badgers had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed it. Deer Class children also took part in a "Spaghetti Challenge", where the goal was to construct the biggest 3D structure that they could using dried spaghetti and marshmallows!
Thursday was an extra special day, as we had a visit from The Happy Puzzle Company, who came in with a selection of maths games for the children to enjoy. This is a newspaper report of the day, written by one of our Year Five children:
NUMBER DAY
Yesterday, the children of Eaton
Bray Academy took part in a Number Day as part of their Maths Week, which has
been happening at their school for the whole week.
During the week, the pupils at
Eaton Bray did different maths related things like creating a zoo and going to
the shops. I spoke to a student from Year 5 about what she liked about Maths
Week and she said, “I liked Maths Week because it was a change from our normal
school day.”
The whole school each had a turn to
do some maths puzzles with Happy Puzzle Company. The children worked in small
groups to solve puzzles and the older children were really competitive and keen
to get on to the next puzzle before the other groups.
On the same day as the Happy Puzzle
Company visit the pupils of Eaton Bray Academy also had to dress as a number or
something to do with maths. There were
lots of amazing costumes including mobile phones, clocks and dice. Prizes are going to be awarded during the
assembly later in the week, to the people with the best costume from each
class.
Overall the children seemed to
really enjoy maths week and they can’t wait for another one!
And so to Friday, which was a very exciting day for Squirrels Class... Having made paper plate pizzas earlier in the week, now they had the chance to make pizza for real! On Friday morning they went off in the minibus into Leighton Buzzard, where they were the guests of Pizza Express restaurant. They were given expert instruction in making authentic Italian style pizzas, and found out some interesting information about pizzas - do you know that the Marguerita pizza was named the Queen Marguerita of Savoy? And that the colours of the pizza reflect the Italian flag - a white pizza base, red tomato sauce, green herbs?
The children all made their own delicious pizza, which they then brought back to school to enjoy in the classroom for their lunch. Many thanks to Pizza Express, who offer this to schools free of charge.
What a busy time! It really doesn't seem like it's only been a week since we came back from half term - well not to staff anyway...