Thursday, 10 April 2025

Maths - The Magic Within Rich Maths Tasks.

 

Rich maths tasks are a big part of our maths programmes and are important for several key reasons. These tasks are designed to engage students in meaningful, challenging, and thought-provoking learning experiences that help build a strong foundation in mathematics. 

So what is a rich maths task ?  

Rich maths tasks are tasks designed to be flexible and open-ended.  They have the ability to lead to many different maths ideas and pathways and they enable us to explore a range of concepts and strategies.  They are what we call 'Low floor, high ceiling".   They are accessible for a range of ages, stages and mixed abilities. 

These tasks encourage students to engage with mathematics in a deeper way. They allow students to start thinking more critically about numbers, patterns, and mathematical relationships.  These tasks require them to problem-solve, explore multiple strategies, and reflect on their thinking in a collective way. They create many great opportunities to develop oral language skills through having to articulate their flexible thinking or questioning to understand more.  

Being able to talk through a problem solving processes really does make our brains grow !! 

Here are some examples of our word problems for our end of term learning celebration:

1.  There are 44 kids.   We have 11 apples.  How would we need to cut them so that each kid has an equal share ?  (What fraction of a whole is each kid going to get?)

2.  We have small groups of 6 kids.  We have a cookie each and 36 jellybeans.  How many will each kid get ?

3.  We have made mousetraps.  (1 piece of toast with cheese) They are cut into 1/4s.  We have 44 1/4s.  How many slices of bread do we need ? 

How would our numbers change if we had 1/2s ? 

We used pictures to describe our thinking.


We used concrete materials - counters to help us with our equal sharing. 



We used our multiplication and division knowledge.
 



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Maths - The Magic Within Rich Maths Tasks.

  Rich maths tasks  are a big part of our maths programmes and are important for several key reasons. These tasks are designed to engage stu...