An icosahedron has 20 faces 

Room 13 have been very busy bees making 3D shapes out of brightly coloured paper and attaching thread to put on the class Christmas tree. The official name of a 3D shape is polyhedron which means a shape with many faces - and the diamonds we've been creating have 8 faces - an octahedron is the correct name.

We've also been making 3D shapes out of play dough and toothpicks. We counted the edges, vertices and faces of each of the shapes we made and recorded our results in a chart in our maths book. Someone in our class figured out that the vertices are the number of play dough blobs in your shape and the edges are the number of toothpicks in your shape (but you still have to count out your shape's faces). It was really fun to make the shapes, especially an icosahedron (picture on left).

Here's what some students thought bout making the shapes:

"I liked making the play dough creations because you could make up your own shapes and be inventive" - Max

"Making the shapes was quite fun" - Sasha

Our Christmas tree isn't completely decorated but some of our diamonds are on the tree (as pictured). Everyone loves the bright colours on the tree and hope to make more decorations so our tree looks great. Do you have any ideas for decorations?

By Georgie

A maths game we tried

Rhea from Room 12 in action

On Tuesday the Room 13 maths class (which combines some of the students from Room 12) played a game on the Interactive Whiteboard to help the students with their subtracting. The problems were written on the board and the students had to "fill in the blanks" on the board using the Interactive Whiteboard marker. Most of the students hadn't used the whiteboard before so it was quite an exciting experience. I spoke to Olivia (one of the Room 12 students who comes through to Room 13 for maths) about the game:

"The game was fun but it was quite a challenge" she told us. "I didn't get to use the Interactive Whiteboard but it was fun seeing my friend Lucy have a go with it."

I also spoke to Room 13 student Zak:

"The game was quite fun - and I got to use the Interactive Whiteboard pen which was fun too."

Connor of Room 13 tries out the
Interactive Whiteboard

The game not only helped the students with their subtracting; it helped them with their "tidy number"
knowledge too. The game sounds pretty fun, yet at the same time you're learning about subtracting tidy numbers! Sounds like this game was a success!!!

By Georgie

Maths Rotations in Room 13

In Room 13, we have a maths interchange with Room 12. This means that some students from Room 12 come into our class, and some students from our class go into Room 12. The maths sessions are a lot of fun.

Before we get on with our work, we see which rotations each group are going to do. Each group has different tasks on each rotation. My group (the Equals group - that is the group name) began with Study Time, then Mastering Maths Facts, and lastly, "Mathletics". Our group didn't do Teacher Time or Hands On today.

Study Time is when you are given a topic (for example - investments) and you have to learn about it and record it on the computer. My groups topic is the Share Market, so we are studying that at the moment (don't worry - we don't have to finish all our work in a day - we get several weeks to finish it!).

Mastering Maths Facts is (for most groups) an activity where one person flicks up some basic facts cards. Everyone else in that group has to answer the questions. After the card person has gone through all the cards, another person in that group flips the cards until its time to change rotations. The other groups go on the computer and create a document about divisibility rules.

Mathletics is a computer programme where you can play maths games, connect with friends (and do maths activities together), and you can complete maths tasks set by your teacher! Everyone loves this rotation.

I'm sure you can guess what teacher time is! You catch up with the teacher on your rotations, and the teacher asks how you're going with it.  It is also the time we get to learn new things such as integers and how to add and subtract negative and positive numbers.  Hands On is where you do your bookwork and activity sheets.

So, now you know what we do in our awesome maths rotations, do you want to join in?

By Georgina

mathletics

We have a Mathletics account to use for maths at school and home. We usually have tasks to do for home learning that you can do on Mathletics. One of the things you can do in Mathletics is to play Live Mathletics, which is a good way to improve your basic facts knowledge and speed. You can compete against others around the world from countries such as Germany, Austria, New Zealand, Australia, USA, and the UK. 

Some of the levels on Live Mathletics are challenging; some of the questions were stuff that I didn't know, like AxR = ? Anyway our class has some very smart kids that can work out those problems and questions. This can help you for school maths without your teacher being there for you, so it's double the learning and this makes you better at maths.

This is a great leaning opportunity for all of the students at Mapua School my favourite part about this is that you can compete against each other from different places which is quite intriguing. 

Written by Jed