We’ve been exploring spirolaterals – patterns formed by repeating simple mathematical rules. We explored different numbers of steps while turning through right-angles. A spirolateral of order 5, for example, follows these rules:

• Forward 1cm then turn
• Forward 2cm then turn
• Forward 3cm then turn
• Forward 4cm then turn
• Forward 5cm then turn
• Repeat

Each turn was 90° clockwise. However, we then decided that it would be more fun to go outside and do some giant maths by drawing large spirolateral patterns across the playground.

We took a very dizzy walk along a spirolateral of order 4 which spirals off in to infinity:

Today we got really active in our maths lesson as we competed in a Roman numerals relay. In teams we raced to collect our numerals before taking them back to put into numbered ordered. We all had a great lesson and discovered that Roman numerals are a lot easier to read than we first thought.

To fit in with several of our topics, Year 4 went to Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the day. We had a tour of the tropical, sub-tropical, arid and Mediterranean glasshouses where we learned about the different places that useful plants actually come from, such as coffee, tea, rubber, cocoa and vanilla, as well as how they are adapted to survive where they live. For example, tropical plants have pointed, waxy leaves to help shed the heavy rainfall while Mediterranean leaves are soft and furry to protect them from the hot summer sun.

We also did a maths trail and explored the gardens including browsing the bamboo, rambling through the rock gardens and examining the exotic birds.

Year 4 had a fantastic day out and learnt lots too!

Nursery have had lots of maths fun this week. We have been counting different things as well as objects and recognising when different groups of objects have the same value. In addition we have been exploring shapes, solving problems and developing our mathematical language.

We have been busy this week  taking part in lots of maths challenges. We began maths week with the first challenge, ‘How many children linking hands would it take to get all the way round the playground?’ We used our counting skills to count to find the total.  Other challenges included, telling the o’clock time, creating repeated patterns with bottle tops and finding shapes in the environment.

Day 3 of maths week found us looking at square numbers. We made them using peg boards, looked at the patterns of numbers involved and investigated what happens when we take numbers from square numbers.

As part of maths week, and our geography theme, we’ve been looking at maps and how we can use maths to locate places on the map. We learned about Ordnance Survey map symbols before exploring 4- and 6-figure grid references.

To practice measuring we’ve been learning how to use a compass to draw a circle. We learned about the radius and the diameter and how to set the compass to the correct radius. We then had fun drawing patterns using the compass.

Year 4 had potions class this week. We had lots of ingredients like gillyweed and dragon’s blood and had to read how much of each ingredient there was. We then had lots of problems to solve using the liquids. We had lots of fun and nobody had to be sent to Professor Dumbledore.

4RF conducted an investigation this week to discover which shape column was the strongest. We tested cylinders, cuboids, triangular, pentagonal, hexagonal and octagonal prisms. Even though each column was made out of just a single piece of paper, the strongest held almost 3kg!

Which was the strongest? Well, let’s not spoil it for 4AB…