Maths Week 2023 - Maths in Motion Highlights
Thank you to everyone who has been sharing on Twitter what you got up to in this year's extended Maths Week Scotland. In particular, we have really enjoyed seeing the different ways everyone was inspired by this year's theme of 'Maths in Motion'. It was difficult to choose any favourites, but we've picked out a few of our highlights.
Sport & P.E.
Unsurprisingly, sports featured heavily in everyone's Maths in Motion activities, with many schools choosing to incorporate it in to their P.E. lessons, for example through measuring or timing their P.E. activities. We also loved seeing schools getting creative in their P.E. lessons, such as the pupils from St Margaret's Primary who used their bodies to create shapes.
Today for @mathsweekscot we investigated maths in sports. We loved the video @EilishMccolgan recorded. We measured our playground, timed ourselves running and tomorrow we’ll work out how long it would take us to run a mile…and maybe a marathon! ✖️➕🧭 pic.twitter.com/9vyWdgQ8pM
— Mrs. Wilson (@MrsWilson_MHP) September 27, 2023
As part of our Maths Week activities today we used our bodies to create shapes in PE. ⭐️#mathsweekscotland pic.twitter.com/ng0BcVRV7Y
— P3/4 and Miss Brannan (@missbrannanP3_4) October 2, 2023
We also had a lot of schools tweeting about penalty predictors, which was one of the recurring activities in this year's Maths in Motion video series produced by the Scottish Mathematical Council in collaboration with the Scottish Football Association.
#Primary6 are enjoying an early #MathsWeekScotland - we have been participating in the #MathsinMotion challenges set by the Scottish Mathematics Council. Our favourite so far is the penalty predictor using our knowledge of fractions & percentages. pic.twitter.com/8r7mTC8dq3
— Castlehill Primary (@CastlehillPri) September 20, 2023
Our most tweeted about event was the 'Multiple Heartbeats' workshop run by Maths on Toast, which looked at the link between maths and exercise. Pupils learned about their pulse, and how to measure and record data about their heartbeats before and after different kinds of exercise.
Today P4B were learning to measure their heart rates and investigating the difference exercise made.#MathsWeekScot @mathsontoast pic.twitter.com/1ZOcXdX1Wi
— Giffnock PS (@giffnockprimary) October 3, 2023
P6W enjoyed learning about and measuring our heartbeats today in our @mathsontoast #MathsWeekScot workshop! pic.twitter.com/LB8GbJ3SBB
— St Peter's RC Primary School Edinburgh (@St_Peters_Edin) October 3, 2023
Dance
Closely related to P.E. and Sports, and coming a close second in most mentioned activities, was dance. We loved seeing all the different schools getting their groove on, from learning how beat and movement are used in music and dance, to creating dance moves for numbers and functions or having a school wide danceathon.
Primary 5/6 and Primary 6 used maths in motion to complete a maths danceathon @MathsScot @mathsweekscot pic.twitter.com/P3J5pyQnyi
— Ravenswood (@RavenswoodPS) September 28, 2023
Check out these #MathsInMotion dance moves for #MathsWeekScot 🕺🏽💃🏽😎 can you spot the functions being danced out by our senior mathematicians🤣 @StThomasAqSec @MrsFarrellDHT @MrsRitchieSTA @MissWhyteSTA pic.twitter.com/UplOYoa1Ta
— STA Maths Department (@STA_Maths) October 3, 2023
Construction
Engineering and mechanics are full of maths and moving parts, so it came as no surprise to see lots of schools getting busy with construction projects. There were lots of paper planes flying around (which again was an activity in this year's Scottish Mathematical Council Maths in Motion video series) and some paper rockets too, as well as projects designing, building and testing everything from marble runs and racing tracks, to car ramps and skate parks.
Our planes created for Maths in Motion for @mathsweekscot. Well done to Calvin for getting the furthest! #MathsWeekScot pic.twitter.com/8SAqrurAGW
— Lornshill Maths Dept (@LornshillMaths) September 29, 2023
Today in #P6K and #P6D we created marble runs for #mathsweekscotland. We worked in teams to use the resources from the classroom to be successful! Chrck out some of our marble runs! #BEST pic.twitter.com/Q5y1TEhrHi
— Whitehills Primary (@Whitehillsps) September 25, 2023
Today’s big Maths Week Scotland challenge for our Primary 3 pupils was linked to the theme ‘Maths in Motion’. They had to work as a team to build a track and then use directional language to help their peers guide a sphero around it. @mathsweekscot #MWSREN pic.twitter.com/oJEeG1RNav
— Newmains Primary (@NewmainsPS) October 2, 2023
Stop Motion
There's lots of maths to think about when creating stop motion videos, such as angles, rations and scales. We really enjoyed seeing the stop motion videos that schools created and shared with us.
Maths in Motion. Today R8 learned how pixar characters are created using coordinates, addition and multiplication and we tried out start/stop movie making, thinking about angles and movement. #MathsWeekScotland pic.twitter.com/RT0zqOa9Ne
— Primary 6 (@stfrancisP6) September 27, 2023
Day 2 of #MathsWeekScotland rescheduled and the pupils from Barra used their #StopMotion skills using the #ZingStudio app to create these fantastic animations. We are super impressed 👏🏼👏🏼 @mathsweekscot @MathsScot @GIC_Glasgow #AllLearnersAllAchieving #STEM pic.twitter.com/d4etlxJVjR
— Saint Charles’ Primary & LCR (@StCharlesGla) October 3, 2023
Outdoor Learning
Maths outside is always a big winner during Maths Week Scotland! Just by moving around outdoors you are already setting your maths in motion, with some schools taking their PE lessons outside too. Other schools organised number or shapes hunts outside, or used map work and orienteering to practice positional and directional language. We were also delighted to spot our 30 Days Wild maths resources being used.
Move it..map it Monday for @mathsweekscot. P5/6 enjoyed making maps and 8 point compasses. We used these with positional language to give and follow directions around the school grounds. We love maths outdoors! #outdoorclassroom #mathsweekscot pic.twitter.com/zNjRkKBZUY
— Longniddry Primary (@longniddryps) September 26, 2023
We took Maths in Motion outside as part of @mathsweekscot. Children used paint🎨to predict and then count how many footprints they could make while running, jumping and skipping before the paint ran out 👣👢👣 Lots of fun and laughter while moving and counting! 🧮#MathsInMotion pic.twitter.com/CIwwJa4TCw
— Cart Mill (@cartmillcentre) September 28, 2023
Languages
We love it when schools incorporate Maths Week Scotland across the curriculum. This year we saw quite a few schools combining maths and language classes, including German, French, Spanish and Italian.
After learning the compass points in French last week, P6/7 were using compasses to find North. We then had different instruction cards to follow the directions. Where would we end up? @mathsweekscot @SBCNumeracy pic.twitter.com/gM5rxIRgdv
— St Peter's PS (@stpetersgala) September 26, 2023
Maths and @sanqacadlangs combination with code breaking in English and French with S1 today @sanquharacademy for @mathsweekscot Excellent work! pic.twitter.com/0UkD2Rnvlq
— April 🦄 (@aprilmcguchan) September 25, 2023
Bowling Multiplication
In the week preceding Maths Week Scotland, one teacher shared a fun idea for learning multiplication in a playful way through bowling. This proved to be popular and we saw quite a few schools pick up this idea during Maths Week itself, so thought we would include the original post here:
Playful Multiplication 🎳
— Blair Minchin (@Mr_Minchin) September 19, 2023
10 mins setup, 50 mins learning. Great way to recap tables & addition in one go.
Wee on the hoof task at the end ‘whoever scores exactly 84 wins us a class point!’ - lots of estimating, mental calculations & joined up thinking#playinupperprimary pic.twitter.com/k2kBOy5F4D
Maths in Motion Posters
This school created posters to show maths in motion in different ways. We also held a Maths in Motion poster competition earlier in the year, with all the amazing winners featuring in this year's Maths Week Scotland countdown.
Primary 5 created posters to show Maths in Motion @stcatherinespsy #MathsWeekScotland pic.twitter.com/cdDbumoffK
— Miss Calvert (@emscalvert) October 5, 2023
And finally...
We finish off our Maths in Motion highlights with another look at maths in sports, and a huge thank you to Dundee FC for being such good sports and supporting Maths Week Scotland!
Keep sharing your maths related activities with us all year round on Twitter with the hashtag #MathsWeekScot!
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