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Hi, I have to do a display this week for year 3 maths and it has be to be a maths invesigation where each child has to write on a3 paper what the invesigation was, what they found out etc.; We're just about to start shape and I'm struggling to think of anything. The only thing I can come up with is investigating whether there is a link between regular shapes and lines of symmetry, although I have found that in the past, chn can't always find the lines of symmetry and it might be hard for the LA chn.
Does anyone have any ideas please? I am more than willing to change from shape to something else, although not data handling as everyone else seems to be doing this!
many thanks
Why not do problem solving and trying to get the children to solve it logically.
One I have done is
You have bats (2 legs) spiders (8 legs) and frogs (4 legs)
Tell the children a witch is trying to make a potion and it has to include 10 legs - what combinations can you have. It is very easy number bonds to 10 but push the higher to get a strategy so they have all the solutions.
It can then extend to having 20 legs in a potion.
It is good for the children to explian their reasoning to others and children come up with interesting ways of trying to record all solutions.
Another option is you have a train with 5 carriages - a maximum of 4 people can sit in each carriage. If 10 / 20 etc people were on the train what are the different combinations of ways they could sit.
Both are quite good for a mixed range class as with simple resources its easy for less able children and then you challenge the highers to find all solutions and to try to find a logical way of finding the answers.
Hope this helps
If you want it to be about shape
Why not something as straightforward as pentominoes
Give them 5 multilink cubes and ask them to make the 12 different shapes
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