For this year's countdown to the Christmas holidays, we have something very exciting planned for you. Keeping in with this year's Maths Tales theme, we are ending the year with a special mystery tale - and we'll need your help to solve it! Finn Finity and the Great Christmas Maths Mystery is an interactive story that you can read together, either in class or at home as a family.
How does it work?
There are 15 chapters in total, plus a prologue and an epilogue, spread over three weeks. On our social media channels and website countdown page, we will be releasing one chapter per day on weekdays, from Monday 2 until Friday 20 December.
The story is a mystery, that our Maths Week Scotland mascot Finn Finity is trying to solve. Each chapter includes one or more puzzles to solve, encouraging a range of different maths skills (a small number of chapters include an additional puzzle, or a puzzle in two parts). Once solved, the puzzles will provide clues to eliminate suspects from a list. By the end of the story, there should only be one suspect left and you will have helped Finn to work out what happened and who did it!
What age is it aimed at?
The puzzles are aimed at Second Level, so P5 to P7. However, younger or older children may enjoy the story and the puzzles too. If you are taking part as a family with a mixed age group, then you can do the puzzles together.
I am a teacher - can you send me the chapters earlier so I can plan ahead?
We know that teachers like to plan ahead, so there will be weekly teachers packs with all the chapters for that week, which will be made available towards the end of the previous week. You can find the teachers packs at the bottom of this page!
What do I do next?
Families, home learners and individuals - head over to our Countdown page, download and read through the instructions, and get started by reading the Prologue. Further chapters, including any relevant puzzle downloads, will be released Mondays to Fridays from 2 December onwards on the Countdown page.
Teachers - scroll down to the end of this page and download your teachers pack. There will be one pack per week, available towards the end of the previous week. The pack for Week 1 is available now!
Any other questions?
If you have any other questions, please feel to email us at mathsweekscot@nms.ac.uk
Christmas Mystery Teachers Packs
Teachers Pack Week 1 (Chapters 1 - 5)
Instructions: Download the files below. Read the Teachers Notes - General Info first. Then read Teachers Notes - Week 1 to familiarise yourself with what to expect for the week. Each day, read a chapter of the story and show the relevant slides as indicated, and complete the puzzle for that day (the Newspaper Puzzle is part of Chapter 4). The final two downloads, List of Suspects and Museum Map are needed on all days.
Instructions: Download the files below. Read Teachers Notes - Week 2 to familiarise yourself with what to expect for the week. Each day, read a chapter of the story and show the relevant slides as indicated, and complete the puzzle for that day (the Morse Code Chart is part of Chapter 9). You will also need the two downloads List of Suspects and Museum Map from Week 1.
Instructions: Download the files below. Read Teachers Notes - Week 3 to familiarise yourself with what to expect for the week. Each day, read a chapter of the story and show the relevant slides as indicated, and complete the puzzle for that day (the Who is Lying? puzzle is part of Chapter 15). You will also need the two downloads List of Suspects and Museum Map from Week 1. Please note: The final day of the mystery includes an additional puzzle plus an epilogue, so please consider this in your planning.
We love science festivals here at Maths Week Scotland, as there's always lots of maths involved! To help you keep up to date with all the science festivals happening in Scotland this year, we've made a list of the ones we know about and we'll update the list throughout the year.
