This is a four part sequence, with quick recall/check-in activities included, aimed at upper primary. Through the lens of Global Goal Number 6, clean water & sanitation, pupils will considered in some depth the challenges faced globally in accessing safe and clean water whilst also learning to identify, calculate and convert fractions and percentages.
Many of the activities are designed for pupils to lead their learning, co-constructing SC and deciding upon the ‘how’ when it comes to most methods of calculating and converting. The lessons all follow a CPA approach.
This is a series of 4 money lessons that link to the Global Goals (SDG 1 No Poverty). It’s a pretty hard hitting topic and will definitely be pertinent to many of your pupils (1 in 4 children in Scotland currently growing up in poverty).
Looking at coins with fun, open ended activities, the lessons centre around cost of the school day, uniform, wages, wealth inequality and budgets.
I intend to take my class through taxes and government spending, as well as enterprise activities but will look to upload those slides at a later date!
This is the second part of my money lessons for upper primary. through a Global Goal lens of no poverty, your pupils can calculate profit and loss with a Social Bite carousel case study. They can also ponder the power of social enterprise.
Looking at accurate wages for a variety of professions, pupils can calculate how easy/difficult it is to save money. they will also discuss why savings are important and factors that lead to inequality in our society.
Finally, there is also a lesson on tax. It uses rounded figures and smaller amounts to make things easier for primary pupils. However, there is a great deal of maths involved for developing their working knowledge of money and the ultimate goal is to show them that tax operates in bands and not in flat rates applied to a full wage (eg someone earning over 80k is taxed at the higher rate on ALL their earnings)
A quick lesson that explores mortgages and sees pupils using their knowledge of multiplication and percentages to garner an underatanding of how the property market works.
The Napier Code is a 6 lesson mathematics unit that explores patterns and sequences within number through an immersive story telling experience. It’s effectively a play on the Da Vinci Code but uses the Scottish Mathematician John Napier as the central figure in a deathly treasure hunt around Edinburghs landmarks.
Covered are:
Fibonacci Numbers
The Golden Spiral
The Number 9
Quadratic Sequences
Pascals Triangle
The Vedic Square
This is a 4 lesson unit of work that explores equations and algebra tiles through the Global Goal lens of ‘Life on Land’. The unit exposes pupils to endangered species in Scotland whilst also allowing them to learn facts about the animals through solving equations.
Very much designed to follow a CPA approach to numeracy, algebra tiles are highly recommended (if you don’t have them, just chop up lots of yellow and green paper - it’s what I have done!)
These slides are created on Keynote and can be exported from powerpoint to any apple device for pupils to manipulate and learn with all the individual pieces.
Battleships works well using the drawing tool, chess is a simple case of drag and drop (get the kids to tell the other player the grid references to help identify which pawn/bishop/knight etc)
The football slide can be adapted and used with basketball, hockey, volleyball and more.
This is a four lesson unit of work that explores 2D shape whilst exposing children to abstract art from a diverse group of artists around the world.
Lesson one: Kandinsky and Circles - learning to use a compass and identifying properties of a circle
Lesson two: Thomas and Circles - learning about Archimedes and how to calculate the circumference
Lesson three: Malevich and regular/irregular shapes - lots of drawing and drilling down into the definitions of regular and irregular
Lesson four: Ocampo and symmetry - opportunities to practice with partners and concrete materials and exploring what symmetry and mirroring are
A series of 5 lessons that explores budgeting and calculating percentage increase/decrease all whilst discussing the Global Goals:
"You now work for Breakwater Bank.
Your first client has asked you to invest £200 in a variety of companies. They are looking for you to buy shares in businesses that are looking to rapidly expand.
You must read and understand the goals of each business before deciding how many shares you will buy.
You need to calculate your expenditure, display your investments in a graph and email your client justifying your decisions"
Building on previous unit of time work linked to Global Goals 11, this is 4 lesson unit looking at buses.
Lesson 1
Pros and Cons of buses and navigating bus timetables
Lesson 2
Create a bus route and calculate how much money a bus can make
Lesson 3
Create a bus timetable from specific arrival times
Lesson 4
Calculate charging times for electric buses
A fun IDL lesson mashing maths and PE together, where pupils consolidate their understanding of fractions whilst getting active outside or in the gym hall.
This is a unit of lessons that involve your class building a paper town as a hub for their learning. they can add to it as the topic progresses. I have plans to look at bus timetables, cars and pedestrians but these initial 4 lessons cover cycling in cities.
Lesson 1:
Consider and identify problems with transport in cities worldwide and in local area, initial time assessment, create paper city
Lesson 2:
Consider pros and cons of cycling, discuss Finnish town video, time telling activities, explore how bike gears work
Lesson 3:
Compare and contrast road cycling and cycle path, calculate journey times, create paper cycle path solutions
Lesson 4:
Balance exercises, calculating journey times
These resources are aimed at creating playful learning experiences in primary. The direction of the learning can be led by the pupils, with the teacher using the sheets to guide and nudge towards desired teaching points. Pupils could flexibly work individually, in a pair or in a small group.
Aimed at upper primary, these whole class lessons allow pupils to explore the Fibonacci sequence using concrete materials, drawings and present the opportunity to unleash their creativity in a purposeful way.
3 activities that link to Global Goal number 3 and will have your class getting active whilst developing their understanding of fractions and decimals.
This resource is designed for upper primary pupils but could be adapted for those either side. Exploring Area and Perimeter through a Global Goals lens of ‘Decent Work’ pupils can involve themselves in practical activities that link to a variety of trades involved in construction. There are 4 lessons in total in this mini sequence but the tasks could be easily extended to provide consolidation and further personalisation
This sequence of three lessons allows pupils in upper primary to consolidate their double digit multiplication skills with grid, vertical multiplication and arrays. Through the lens of Clean Energy pupils can explore the benefits of clean energy whilst also considering the challenges involved in rolling sustainable power out across the world.
Low floor, high ceiling math tasks are designed to cut down workload and champion pupils in leading their learning. I usually start with a practical, hands on role play task before doing a little bit of input, followed by around 20 minutes independent work off the slide.
Percentages - get the lost property out, have pupils price it up with post it notes and then task them with reducing the items by 50%
Barbers - get A4 paper, cut it into ten strips (almost to the end of the paper) and attach to the back of chairs. Hand scissors to pupils and watch them cut, style, curl, taper and add extensions!
Area - get the blocks out, give them a rough blueprint with measurements and let them build the foundations with rulers for accuracy
This is a 10 lesson long unit that saw my class using Keynote to create various graphs, charts and interrogate their data.
You could very easily use this and have your class create the graphs in their jotters - but Keynote is a wonderful app for quickly compiling data and allows for more time in a lesson to analyse and discuss what is being shown.