Create an infinite variety of interesting mathematical activities

WHAT IF NOT? – TURNING A SINGLE ACTIVITY INTO MANY

Part I of the Really Useful Maths Book book provides a rich set of activities from across the whole of the primary maths curriculum, including ideas for teaching and using maths in cross-curricular activities. Maths needs to be introduced into other curriculum areas, for example by applying statistical ideas to raw data found in geography, science or English. Maths also needs to be exemplified in activities by drawing on other curriculum areas. Music and some poetry for example have a mathematical basis.
     Give a person a fish and they will eat for a day.
     Teach a person to fish and they will eat for a lifetime.
Teachers who believe they have to fish for a new activity every time they teach a maths lesson are like those who only have sufficient fish to eat for a single day: enough to stay alive but not enough to sustain themselves. The pedagogical equivalent of learning how to fish is to learn to adapt, change, modify and re-use mathematical activities, making many activities from a single starting point. One book can only provide a small set of activities but the teacher who takes a single good idea can generate innumerable activities. We hope to provide enough exciting starting points for teachers to create an infinite variety of interesting mathematical activities. When trying to generate plenty from one, the teacher will need to adapt, change and expand the activities in Part 1 of this book. We describe below various ways to do this.

Visit the companion website.  Many corrections have been made and it is pretty clean now nearly 18 months after publication. All feedback welcome. hliebling@gmail.com