The View

Mathematics

In our last newsletter, we included information on how you can support your child to engage with Mathematics at home and included 5 tips on how to help them. This week, we are including something for our F-2 and 3-6 students and families, in addition to another problem solving game the whole family can play! We hope you enjoy the time with your children engaging in fun Mathematics activities.

 

Maths Every Day

Given our students are spending their days at home (and not at School where we would all prefer to be!) we wanted to provide some ideas that you can do each day of the week. These activities will engage our younger students with everyday Mathematical language and concepts. They also provide wonderful opportunities for our younger students to explore Mathematics in a real word context – what better way! We hope you and your children enjoy these ideas and take some photos of their new discoveries. Please send photos to the school office and we can include in the next newsletter.

(Photos can be emailed to rangeview.ps@education.vic.gov.au).

  • There can only be one counter in a circle at one time, and there's no jumping.

 

This is a wonderful brain-teasing, problem solving activity for our middle/senior students to do with their parents/carers. Who can solve this puzzle using the least amount of stars? Will it be the parent or the student? Please let us know and good luck!

 

Kirk is designing a banner for an astronomy club. They want to put some stars on the banner, in straight lines. Here are Kirk’s rules:

  • The banner needs to have 5 straight lines, with 4 stars on each line.
  • None of the straight lines can have 5 stars in them.
  • The straight lines can go up and down, or left and right, or at a diagonal at any angle.
  • Stars can be in multiple straight lines at the same time.

The stars that Kirk wants to use are expensive, so they want to use as few as possible. What’s the best design you can make?

13 stars: good                                 11 stars: great                                 10 stars: excellent!

 

Brainteaser hint:

This puzzle is easier if you start by drawing the lines. If you put a star where 2 lines meet, the star will be in both lines!

There are many answers, so there are lots of ways to approach this puzzle. One simple way is to start with the idea of a grid. With 2 lines across and 2 lines down you’ll have 4 lines of 4 stars, using 12 stars. You can find a sneaky diagonal line by adding just one more star.

 

Solutions will be revealed in our next newsletter, including diagrams showing the least amount of stars that were used.

 

This is a game for two players. You will need a game board (print image below or hand draw on a piece of paper) and four counters each. Place the counters as shown and decide who goes first by flipping a coin. If you don’t have counters from other board games, you can use pebbles, coins, two different types of pasta (shells and spiral) or any other small objects.

 

The aim of the game is to block the other player so he/she can't move.

  • You can move from circle to circle around the outside ring.
  • You can move from the middle circle to an outside circle.
  • You can only move to the middle circle if there's one of the other player's counters beside you (in one of the circles to your left or right) before you move.

 

Keep an eye out for more Mathematics games and problem solving activities that the whole family can enjoy in the next newsletter. 

 

Best wishes,

 

Lee Giddings and Vicki Tzimos