The Falcon Newsletter

Maths/Numeracy

PI Day Competition

Wednesday the 23rd of March was the International Day of Mathematics and provides an opportunity to celebrate the essential role that mathematics and mathematics education play in breakthroughs in science and technology, improving the quality of life, empowering women and girls, and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development. 

 

At Lyndale we celebrated the day by providing lunch activities and prizes around circles and Pi as Pi Day is also celebrated in March. This is due to the American date format that has March the 14th appearing like the mathematical constant π (3.14). Congratulations to Tran Nguyen who hand drew an almost perfect circle!

 

Thank you to the STEM committee and Mr Anderson for running yet another successful Pi Day! 

 

Jennifer Ramus 

Director of Maths and Numeracy

Numeracy Support and Tutors at Lyndale

At Lyndale, our Year 7 - 10 students are able to benefit from additional numeracy support based on previous achievement data and other measures of numeracy progress. We can provide this support through the Department of Education and Training’s Tutor Learning initiative (TLI) and Middle Years Literacy and Numeracy Support (MYLNS). 

 

A numeracy intervention teacher will be working with students once a week (75 minutes) in small groups. We are also pleased to have many of our past high achieving students join our numeracy intervention team, including our 2021 College Dux, Visothpong Chhoam (who received an outstanding ATAR score of 98.15)! 

 

Pong, Ms Ramus and students
Pong, Ms Ramus and students

 

Pong and alongside other tutors support our students by strengthening their numeracy skills, monitoring their progress, and setting goals for future learning. The numeracy teacher will also work with regular classroom teachers to help them incorporate strategies to support their learning in their other classes. 

Tangrams 

A Tangram is a fun seven - piece puzzle used to classify geometric shapes and spatial relationships. It is an ancient Chinese puzzle that adults and children still use today to help develop their problem solving, matching skills and create endless possibilities of complex shapes. 

 

The roots of the word 'Tangram' have many different explanations. Some people believe that it came from the Tanka people. The Tanka were river people of China who were great traders. Later, Tangrams became very popular in the 19th century in Europe and America.

 

A complete set of Tangram consists of seven pieces: 

  • A small square
  • Two small congruent triangles 
  • Two large congruent triangles
  • A medium - size triangle 
  • A parallelogram 

Well done to Rodney Ma'o from 7A on his talented Tangram creations!

 

Try the online version of the Tangram 

https://www.abcya.com/games/tangrams

 

or make your own set in a few minutes with paper, rulers and scissors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9HGnrmdrEU&ab_channel=Fun4HappyKidz%21

 

Karen Huynh

Numeracy Intervention Teacher