Grade 5 Newsletter

What makes a great mathematician…?

The Grade 5s have spent the last week further developing their understanding of what it means to be a great mathematician. They spent the week engaging in activities that further expanded their problem solving and reasoning skills. Students were challenged through tasks that encouraged them to undertake a growth mindset when faced with a mathematical problem. 

The Grade 5s ended their week with a ‘Cup Stacking’ STEM challenge to build their teamwork and communication skills which is important when collaborating in Maths lessons. The students needed to work together to produce a way to move the cups and stack them as high as possible. They had to move the cups using only a rubber band and string and the highest tower after 5 minutes would be declared the winner. If your stack collapsed at any given time during the 5 minutes, you had to rebuild your stack before the timer ran out. There were several good (and different) techniques experimented with as students communicated their ideas with their teammates. 

Below are some reflections from the Year 5 students:

Isla: I enjoyed how anything could happen! Even when the timer was almost done, the cups could fall so you had to work with the team to stack the cups carefully. 

Edward: I liked how we showed great teamwork and there was a lot of enthusiasm. Everyone in my team worked really well together. 

Adelia: I enjoyed working with my team and seeing the different ways we could stack the cups.

Seb: I liked my team discussing how we could stack the cups as high as possible. It was alot of fun!