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.
 



No comments:

Post a Comment

The Childhood Magic of Play

We have been out and about in the sun this week whipping up all kinds of potions and measurements.  In Tautoru we know that having a playful...