Is there anyone out there who remembers what day of the week it is, let alone the date? If like me, you have lost track it will soon be the month of May!
Wednesday 13th May celebrates "National Numeracy Day" , but due to the Coronvirus/ partial school closures, many pupils will now be "distance learning". Therefore, please promote National Numeracy Day through your usual channels of communications with parents and hopefully we can still get many children involved.
The day is all about recognising that numbers play a big part in all our lives and helping people sharpen their skills and build their confidence. The NND site has three printable activities for families for ages 11 and under and also for 12 plus and adults (which includes a maths quiz). The activities for ages 11 and under are detailed below:
At The Zoo - Data handling activity based on the number of legs animals in a zoo have.
Silly String - Move the string/rope in position to make different shapes.
Colour the Shapes - You could cut the shapes out after colouring and see what you could make using those shapes.
LGfL have a range of resources that could be promoted to parents in order to get pupils involved on National Numeracy Day from their homes, as well as the Key Workers' children still in schools.
BusyThings have a wealth of resources to support number at home, from flashcards, to games, printables and interactive worksheets there are over 200 activities that can be used for extend numeracy skills from EYFS to KS2. If you have an LGfL teacher log in, you can search via the "Special Events" tab. You will see that "National Numeracy Day" is listed as shown below; there are many maths resources highlighted for use:
If you are logging in from a child's account you could search for the listed activities by name or just explore the "maths" section within your Key Stage and Year Group area.
If you are new to BusyThings do also explore the (Maths) Resource Maker Area: "Number and Place Value" and "Addition, Subtraction and Multiplication".
You can create your own number cards, counting and number bonds worksheets and much more (see descriptions under tiles above).
We also have the new home learning resource "Busy at Home" - suggested activities targetted to different age groups and topics. These can be found on the LGfL Coronavirus site:
j2e Toolsuite has a range of maths tools that can be used by pupils at home.
Why not get your pupils to use Tt Blast to see who can complete the most games and earn the most points on that day? Or you could set up j2vote and see what activities pupils are most enjoying about the lockdown and then set some analysis questions based on the data collected.
The pupils could also be asked to collect data regarding their family and friend's favourite activity during lockdown and then decide which graph is best to represent the data collected.
For further ideas with j2e please refer by clicking the hyperlink to the recently published guest blog from Just2easy themselves, called "Just2easy and Remote Learning".
Adobe Spark could also be used to start an exercise journal as explained by DigiDom. Dominic Traynor (@dom_traynor) is the "Education Evangelist" at Adobe and he has started a YouTube channel (where you can subscribe) where he is uploading Spark tutorial videos. Since many people are taking part in daily workouts online DigiDom talks you through how to create your own daily workout journal. The pupils could collect data from their daily workouts and over time see if their performance increases (e.g how many squats can they complete within a minute?). The graph could be created in j2e and then this could be added to their Spark journal.
Maths in the Real World activities include: Nutrition, Arena and Events and Round the World - perfect to use on National Numeracy day for the children to apply their mathematical knowledge to real life problems. Parents could use one or all of the topics to get children to budget for a meal, event or travelling round the world (when the travel ban is lifted and social distancing is relaxed).
Maths at Home is a fantastic resource to share with parents if you haven't already. The resource is designed to provide support for parents to help their child with their mathematical development at home. A video has been made for every single NC descriptor for the whole of KS1 and 2. Each video is a snapshot of how many schools may teach the particular strand, and also provides examples of how parents could support their child at home. Where appropriate, video content is reinforced with a selection of downloadable resources.
Maths at Home videos are designed to feel like they are taking place on a table at home, encouraging communication, conversation and lots of fun while working on them. The video resources are designed to bring maths to life, highlighting learning opportunities within cookery, play, decorating and gardening. Most importantly, they are designed to ignite conversations between children and parents, and to make maths a positive and enjoyable experience outside of school.
In response to school closures, many establishments have given free access to a range of maths lessons.
Here are just a few suggestions:
BBC Bitesize - daily lessons for homeschooling in maths (and other subjects are available)
Oak National Academy - a bank of high-quality, sequenced video lessons and resources
Gareth Metcalfe's iseemaths - information, resources and links for the daily home maths lessons hosted by Gareth Metcalfe during the UK school closures for Covid-19
Graham Andre's Mathematics Shed - The Shed is a collection of videos and resources to help you teach maths in an engaging way, there are a huge number of 'sheds' including the warm up shed, addition shed and a maths topic shed to name a few.
To help ease the burden, if you are on Twitter or Facebook do look at #RemoteLearning #Edtech #HomeLearningUK people are being encouraged to share resources and make learning accessible by adopting these hashtags.
Remember, if you need any support with our learning content you can contact the Inspire Team by emailing contentsupport@lgfl.net or contact the LGfL Switchboard: 020 82 555 555. Also visit coronavirus.lgfl.net which is continually updated with advice and support during the partial school closures.
If you do use any LGfL content in your school to inspire your students do let us know by posting them on LGfL’s Twitter or Facebook