Assistant Principal Update..

Wellbeing- It’s okay to not be okay

Recently, Mt Eliza Primary School was fortunate enough to work with the organisation It’s okay to not be okay to provide wellbeing learning to our year 5 and 6 students about the importance of maintaining their mental health. The organisation ran an interactive session in the library where presenters shared their own strategies on how they focused on their wellbeing and discussed their personal journeys to maintain mental health. Students were really engaged and keen to ask questions to the presenters, one of which competed in the last summer Olympics as a boxer representing Australia. 

During our shared learning, students were encouraged to create a “toolbox” of strategies that best suited them when they felt they needed it. It was great to hear the excitement as they shared strategies unique to themselves and learned from each other what each had put in their toolbox to promote their own mental health. 

A Mathematical Moment

Problem solving is a key mathematical skill that allows students to take the learning they have developed and apply it to a situation where they must critically think. Here is a mathematical problem to try at home that increases in difficulty with each question in order to cater for different ages and skill at our school. I wonder how far you might make it! If you complete some of this problem, show your working out to Mr Thresher as one of the challenges of good mathematics is to provide evidence of what strategies you used and get the numbers out of your head. 

Mr Thresher’s farm has some cows and some chickens. I have ten animals altogether on my farm.

1) How many cows and chickens might there be on my farm? Show as many different combinations as you can. 

I am thinking of knitting socks for my animals, because it is a very cold winter.

2) How many socks might I need to knit? (Hint: How many legs might be on my farm altogether?)  Show as many different combinations as you can.

3) What is the largest number of socks I will need to knit?

4) What is the smallest number of socks I will need to knit?

I can knit 2 chicken socks with 1 small bunch of yarn, but I need 2 small bunches of yarn to knit 1 cow sock.

5) How much yarn might I need to give all my animals socks? Show as many different combinations as you can.

6) What is the most amount of yarn I will need?

7) What is the least amount of yarn I will need?

A small bunch of yarn costs $2.

8) How much might I need to spend on making my animals’ socks? Show as many different combinations as you can.

9) What is the most amount of money I will need to spend on yarn?

10) What is the least amount of money I will need to spend on yarn?

I have $90 to spend on yarn.

11) What combinations of animals on my farm can I knit socks for with $90 (or less)?

12) What is the maximum number of cows I can have on my farm to stay within my budget?

13) If I spend all of my $90 on socks, and all my animals get socks, how many cows and chickens must be on my farm?

It will be helpful to organize your thinking to keep track of your ideas. Here is a chart you might use to help you get started.

Darren Thresher

Assistant Principal