How it Works

Three things children need to be confident with Maths:
- practical experience of number
- regular practice of core number skills
- the opportunity to discuss ideas and practise explaining things
- freedom to explore and investigate to see 'what happens if'.

This is what Maths Investigations is all about!

The main children's page is shown in the screen shot below.

Click for a 1-minute Video Summary of the basics

Note: This video guide does not include the latest exciting feature - the Learning Wall. For info on this, see below.

Read on for more detail...

There are three main routes into the tablet activities: the Wise Owls, the Learning Wall and the Learning Ladder.

The Wise Owls are a set of imaginary teachers that children can sign up with. Each owl covers skills at a particular level. Working through the owls in order will give a coherent skills progression. The owls are an excellent place for children to begin when first using Maths Investigations, since no set-up of activities is required.

The Learning Wall invites you to take a series of diagnostic tests (called tournaments) which flag up gaps in your learning. You are then directed to activities to help plug the gaps. The Learning Wall is accessed by children from their My Things area. The children find this highly motivating and it is excellent for overlearning of key skills and concepts.

The Learning Ladder gives access to the complete set of tablet activities, and can be used by teachers to assign activities to whole classes or groups of children.

The other sections on the main child index page as follows:

My Things is where you can see points, characters and medals that you have collected, and track your progress.

The Our Activities section is where you go to see either the activities for the owl you are currently working on, or the activities that your teacher has set up for you. (See Setting up Activities.)

The activities are designed to be used on a tablet following discussion with a teacher or parent, using practical equipment (counters, cubes, base ten material, metre stick etc) to discuss their ideas.

The focus is core number skills: counting, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions, decimals & percentages and measurement.

Most activities include an investigation, which children work through page by page either individually or in pairs, and a quiz, which they do alone.

As you work, cute characters pop up which you can collect. A great motivator!

The Pair Games allow you and a friend to challenge each other with questions that you have made up.

For teachers, the Extra Tools can be used as a versatile teaching tool for additional skills practice, or for pupils to check the answers to written calculations.

For a brief summary of the purpose of the different activities see the parent pdf guides Maths Investigations: Guide for Parents and Investigations: Helping at Home.

For a more detailed guide to a particular type of activity, click on the appropriate link above.

All the activities are accessible at home, so teachers can set activities for homework and encourage children to keep exploring and investigating on their own. There is also a comprehensive guide for parents so parents can get fully involved in the learning too.

With the right introduction, you can have your class highly motivated within an hour and desperate to go home at the end of the day to log on and collect more characters!

Finally, please see also the help videos which teachers, children and parents can all use to find out how everything works.

What you Need