Taking Maths Outdoors with Raccoon Circles Symmetry

Created by the co-author of Bloomsbury’s award winning National Curriculum Outdoors series of books and The Sustainability and Climate Change Curriculum Outdoors (2024) , these low resource task cards illustrate activities that simply make use of a length of tape and chalk, to create shapes and to demarcate the working area.
Using their speaking and listening skills, partner-shared talk, discussion and teamwork, the children make shapes and talk about symmetry.
This is set 4 of 11 (4/11) sets of Taking Maths Outdoors’ cards covering Geometry, Measurement, Number activities and Statistics. The cards are in ‘Grab and Go’ format, with clear instructions for the activities linked to NC 2014 Numeracy objectives by year group. If printed double sided, the objectives covered by the tasks are on the front, with the tasks and activities explained on the back. The cards are grouped by mathematical areas.
Simply use the ideas for a mental oral starter, plenary or even a whole maths lesson.
All you will need is a length of tubular webbing tape, allowing 35-40cm per child, to create a visual line or circle for the children.
The activities can be done in small focus groups, or as a whole class and although they are designed for the outdoors and need space, they can be done where ever space is available.
The ideas are easily adapted, and before long you (and your class) will be able to use the techniques and invent new activities to make maths memorable!
Many of these activities make use of ‘Raccoon Circles’ techniques and ideas.
More great teambuilding activities can be found in The Revised and Expanded Book of Raccoon Circles, by Jim Cain and Tom Smith, Kendall/Hunt Publishers (2007) ISBN 978-0-7575-3265-8 or for a free download of activities on world wide webbing at the teamwork and team play website.