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Cross-Curricular Investigations   Practical Measurement Practical work in Maths is always a hit! And what better reason to do practical measurement than in tackling an investigation. Measurement investigations provide enormous scope for mathematical skill building: using the measuring equipment correctly and measuring accurately understanding and minimising sources of error dealing with the fact that different people get different results - this can open up discussions about averaging, different kinds of averages and which are appropriate when, rounding and appropriate degrees of approximation converting between different metric measurements recording of measurements using diagrams calculations using decimals (either written or using a calculator) and appropriate ways of recording these in writing step-by-step written explanations of thinking. The three investigations here are all have a weather link. One is about snow (or you could use rain!) - the others involve shadows and so would benefit from sunshine. One is indoor. Two are outdoors. Between them, they touch on a wide range of mathematical topics: symmetry compass points the 24 hour clock metric measurements for length, volume and capacity addition, subtraction, multipication and division with decimals simliar triangles and ratio. How do shadows work? Shadow Clocks

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How tall is that building?

How tall is that building?

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How much snow (or rain!) would fill the classroom?

How much snow would fill the classroom?

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Numbers and Data

Most numbers in the real world are big. If not big, then they are decimals. Some children find these scary!

The simple solution is to let the children work first with easy numbers ('try a simpler case'), work out what to do, and then do the same thing with the trickier numbers using a calculator if necessary.

Both these investigations illustrate this approach. One is about elections, the other about populations. Both involve tricky real-world numbers.

Here are the skills you can build this time...

• finding and recording information in a table
• reading, rounding and ordering large numbers
• adding and subtracting large numbers
• showing the relationship between two amounts as a fraction
• converting fractions to percentages
• rounding calculator answers appropriately
• creating correctly labelled bar or collumn graphs with an appropriate scale
• calculating the angles for different sections in a pie chart
• drawing angles correctly, using a protractor.

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How does the population compare between the main cities in the UK?

Populations

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How did the different parties do in the last election?

Election Results

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Maps, Distances and Travel

A study of a local area, or of a journey, can provide a super context for learning about Scale. Using real maps provides real motivation.

Don't restrict yourself to easy numbers! There is no reason that the children cannot work with real-world large numbers or decimals if they understand the context. If you show them how to use conversion tables they will easily grasp how to build up from simple numbers to harder ones.

If you throw in timetables as well then you can cover all the following skills:

• reading timetables
• calculating time intervals
• measuring small distances accurately
• converting between different metric measurements
• rounding numbers
• using scale to calculate real distances from map distances
• finding averages
• calculating speeds.

Here are some ideas...

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How many hula hoops (the crunchy eating variety!) would it take to stretch all the way from here to Big Ben (in the centre of London)?

How Many Hula Hoops? [Apparently there was an advert where hula hoops were stacked in a pile beside Big Ben from top to bottom to see how many there would be. One of our Primary 3 pupils thought it would be much more interesting to find out how many would stretch from the school to Big Ben – it turned out to be quite a lot, since we were in Edinburgh in Scotland! We had GREAT fun investigating this!]

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If we went on a coach journey taking in the seven cities in Scotland (for example) how far would we travel?

Maps and Scales

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How big is the world?

How far is it round the world?

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How long does it take to fly to different places in the world?

Flights

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Where does the train stop on a journey from London to Edinburgh (or any other two cities you choose)? How far does it travel? How long does it take? How fast does it travel on different sections of the journey?

Train Journey

 

Investigations with Mathematical Contexts

Using Dialogue: Developing investigative thinking with younger children

Thinking Teams

Browse Index of photocopiable investigations

 

See Other Activity Types

Maths Investigations - Challenging Children to Think about Maths