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These tasks for 5 to 7 year olds are part of our Maths at Home feature and you can see all the tasks for this age group here. The activities below need some everyday bits and pieces. Anything will do so be creative! (The stars give an indication of challenge level, from one star to three stars.)

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This poster resource has been compiled over a number of years and includes a wide range of free to use images to help support activities to develop Maths Eyes. The images have been catalogued and can be searched by a particular maths lens, Shape and Space, Measures and Number, Data and Chance, Algebra and Problem Solving. You can also search by year. We hope you find these poster resources useful.

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Poster Resources - Have You Got Maths Eyes

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This poster resource has been compiled over a number of years and includes a wide range of free to use images to help support activities to develop Maths Eyes. The images have been catalogued and can be searched by a particular maths lens, Shape and Space, Measures and Number, Data and Chance, Algebra and Problem Solving.

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Virtual counters for use in and out of the classroom.

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Online manipulatives bring all of the learning and fun without the mess. Our math virtual manipulatives help students grasp abstract concepts through modeling. Literacy virtual manipulatives create a fun space for practicing spelling, rhyming, and more!

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Virtual Manipulatives | Mathematical Modelling | Toy Theater

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Original teaching tools aimed at supporting teachers in the elementary school classroom. Two color counters, 3D dice, probability spinners, graph builders, fraction bars, base ten blocks, and more!

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​Whether you are an experienced teacher, a teacher trainee, a teacher educator, a parent, a researcher or a policy maker, we hope you will find this website interesting and useful. Specifically, we want to share with you the benefits of te﻿aching and learning mathematics through stories and creative writing, as well as to offer practical ideas for teachers and parents on how to embrace this approach.

This website has been designed and continuously developed based on the feedback we receive from the key stakeholders as noted above. There are plenty for you to do on this website, including, but not limited to:
Please take your time to explore the website using either the menu bar at the top of the page or from the menu below.

Finally, consider s ubscribing to our free quarterly newsletters, and please help spread the word about our project and its website :-)

Best wishes,

Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai B.A. (Hons), M.Sc. (Oxford), M.Sc. (London, UCL), Ph.D. (Cambridge), QTS

@NatthapojVinceT Natthapoj.org

Associate Professor of Mathematics Education
​University of Reading (UK)

Founder & Principal Investigator
​MathsThroughStories.org
​

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Here you have activities related to our fun fair poster. As the teacher you know your pupils best so feel free to adapt these activities to suit your class group: older or younger children, EAL learners, pupils of differing abilities and interests, group sizes etc.

If you think to other way to use the poster, we would love to hear about it. Please drop a description of the activity and how it went along to our email mathsweek@setu.ie

The learning points revolve around identifying objects, numbers, and spatial elements, fostering vocabulary development, sentence structure, thinking skills, turn-taking, and memory. Additionally, they include recognizing numbers, counting, understanding odd and even numbers, identifying objects by colour, and developing number sequencing skills. Spatial awareness involves counting, size description, and positional relationships. Finally, number stories and creativity are encouraged for an in depth understanding of concepts.

Click on the different titles to see the suggestions.

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Junior Primary Poster 2024 Funfair Math - MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Maths Week will take place from 12 - 20 Oct. 2024. We will have events and activities for all the family. Visit MathsWeek.ie for more info MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Maths Week will take place from 14 - 22 Oct. 2023. We will have events and activities for all the family. Visit MathsWeek.ie for more info MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Maths Teacher, Diane Murphy gives advice on how to incorporate learning in a relaxed and enjoyable way into normal household activities. Perhaps some of you are not comfortable with teaching maths to your child - methods may have changed since you were at school or perhaps you were never comfortable with maths and as a result, avoid teaching the subject at home. We will provide 5 ways that parents can easily teach maths in a meaningful way - away from the textbook and with a hands-on approach. Children will apply their basic maths knowledge to everyday household tasks. They may not know they are doing so but they will be thinking mathematically, making links with the maths curriculum and see the relevance of maths in their everyday world.
Maths is an important skill for all members of society to embrace. Maths is all around; it underpins almost everything we do! Whether you are completing the household shop, doing the laundry, or preparing dinner and setting the table - mathematical thinking is involved. By including children in these everyday jobs, you provide them with material and opportunities that will encourage learning in maths. If you talk to your children about simple maths concepts such as size, weight, distance, time and counting, they can hear maths language and see how it is used.

We want to give parents and carers the peace of mind that you can provide meaningful teaching and learning in maths.

Doing the laundry is one of those tasks that nobody really loves doing, am I right? You may already be outsourcing some of the tasks to your children by getting them to match socks and collect and count clothes pegs. Here are some other ways you can teach the curriculum while doing the laundry.

Sorting and grouping is the task of identifying a common feature to form a group. This basic maths skill is important in learning to organise knowledge and ideas. Children need to learn to discriminate differences, to reason and analyse, and to select items to form groups. This can be practiced very easily by asking the following questions:

Can you make a pile of all the towels?

Can you make a pile for colours, a different pile for dark colours and another pile for the whites?

Matching is the task of identifying which items are the same and which are different. Matching is important to help children develop a range of thinking and problem-solving skills, such as being able to identify patterns, relationships, similarities, and differences and discriminate on such basis. You can teach this by asking your child to:

Match pairs of socks. (identical objects)

Match pyjama tops and bottoms. (related objects)

Comparing is an important skill that young children learn very quickly, especially when it comes to treats - "but she got more than me!!". It is the task of looking more specifically at colour, size, shapes, patterns and number of items in order to compare items or groups of items. Students should be enabled to compare objects according to length, width, height, weight, quantity, thickness or size and compare sets without counting. (more than and less than.) Try asking the following:

Do we have more black socks or more white socks?

Who do you think has the most t-shirts in the washing basket - you or me? Let us check and see!

Is this white towel the same as that white towel? (Bigger, smaller, longer, shorter)

Build another pile of socks with the same number of socks as this one

Counting is one of those maths skills that can be incorporated into almost everything we do. Reinforcing the correct number sequence is important because it allows numbers to be used to describe and compare sets. You can practice this by asking the following:

How many towels are on the line?

How many pairs of socks have we matched? (push them aside while counting)

How many clothes pegs do we have?

How many clothes pegs do you think we will need to hang three towels?

The kitchen can provide lots of opportunities for rich mathematical experiences - as a parent you may be already sharing these with your children and not even knowing you are teaching the maths curriculum. Young children can help by setting the table, organising the shelves, cooking, and baking and apply the basic maths skills of sorting, grouping, matching, and counting. Develop their maths skills by asking the following when you are setting the table
SORTING:

Ask your child to sort the place mats, depending on colour or size

Give all the cutlery to the child and ask them to separate them into different groups - forks, spoons, knives etc and get them to talk about their arrangements

Get them to gather all the plastic plates together

MATCHING:

Match this fork with another fork exactly like it

Match this napkin to one exactly like it

Each person at the table should have a knife and a fork - will you place one fork and one knife at each setting

Match each cup to a saucer

Pop an unlit nightlight into each candle holder

Every chair should have one cushion on it, can you find a chair with more than one cushion?

Can you find a chair with less than one cushion?

Everyone has ice in their glass - can you spot someone who has more ice than you?

COMPARING:

What is different between Dad's slice of bread and yours?

Investigate the different sizes of serving bowls on the table

Demonstrate the portion sizes: big portion for parents, medium portion for children, small portion for baby

COUNTING:

How many people will be sitting at the table tonight?

How many cups are on the table? When you are placing cups on the table count them as you do so.

How many more do we need?

Ask the child to give two slices of bread to everyone

Count out enough spoons for everyone for dessert

Estimate how many cookies are in the jar (less than 20), count them and check.

For more ideas on how to develop mathematical thinking in the kitchen check out www.mathsweek.ie
Although children cannot accompany adults when shopping now, there are still lots of opportunities to share meaningful maths experiences with your child when completing this household chore. There are so many bargains to be had online now; involve your teenagers with the online shopping and discuss any saving opportunities. Young primary school children can continue to practice the maths concepts of sorting, matching, and counting. With the older students, Before leaving for the shop: it does not matter if you are unfamiliar with the methods they are using or if a child does not reach an end point, getting stuck is to be expected. Try figure out the problem together, facilitate a discussion about what they have done so far and where they aim to end up. Communicating mathematically in this way offers a very worthwhile learning experience. Talk to your child about having a growth mindset, praise hard work and resilience instead, instead of speed and intelligence. When at the shop - take photos of any special offers, try buy items that have a certain percentage free and hold on to the receipt after paying for the items. When home:

Sort the cupboards by matching similar objects and identifying anything low in stock or excess stock.

Group all the sauces together and arrange them in order of size, colour, shape

Compare items according to length, width, height, weight, quantity, thickness, or size

Classify the shopping list in terms of Dairy, Meat, Sweets and goodies, fruit, veg - discuss where each item should go, (add items to clearly defined set)

Ask children to count how many items are on the veg list - compare that to the goodies list - discuss

For older students encourage them to work with budgets. Give them a list of items that the house needs and a budget to work with - encourage research through catalogues and through internet searches.

Ask younger children to count how many shopping bags you have

Ask them to help sort the shopping into piles for fridge, cupboard, bathroom.

Estimate how much the shop came to

Give older students the receipt with the totals removed - ask them to estimate the total cost by rounding to the nearest euro or pound. Show actual total and calculate percentage difference x 100

With the items that came with a certain percentage free - ask the child to calculate how much of the product is free?

Show picture of deals on offer in the shop. What does 3 for the price of 2 mean? what is 50% extra free? Is it better to buy a big jar or two small jars?

Show a receipt from the petrol station - if petrol is €1.42 per litre and you spent €30 how many litres did get? If a full tank takes 65 litres how much would that cost? If you travel 17 km to shops at an average of 60km per hour - how long will it take you to travel to shops?

Of course, not all maths has to be applied to jobs around the house - recreational maths is maths that is carried out for entertainment and often involves mathematical puzzles and games.

Provide toys that encourage your child to explore maths concepts: card games, puzzles, dominoes, board games with dice, blocks, tangrams. Many of the maths week daily activities involve coins, cards and dice.

Play games of make-believe that involve maths ideas. For example, playing shop involves counting items and money. Playing doctor's and nurses encourages taking temperature and measuring height and weight. Playing post office provides opportunities to organise envelopes, boxes, and tubs by size.

Incorporate arts and crafts into the maths lesson. Check out the maths week's daily activities for loads of fun maths activities that your family can do with everyday things that you might have at home.... and a little imagination.

See measurement activity here

This activity will see secondary school children using problem solving strategies to create a scaled map of their garden. They will practice the skills that they have learned in the classroom and apply them to their world. They will observe their surroundings and then select and use appropriate techniques to complete this task. Children will make estimates, then accurately measure the dimensions of the garden, and present the project as a scaled map inclusive of symbols.
"By asking What do you notice? What do you wonder? we give students opportunities to see problems in big picture ways, and discover multiple strategies for tackling a problem. Self-confidence, reflective skills, and engagement soar, and students discover that the goal is not to be "over and done," but to realize there are many different ways to approach problems." Explains Anthony Persico from Mash up Maths
Children should be prompted to ask questions and make assumptions - qualities of a great mathematician!

During problem solving, children should be encouraged to communicate their mathematics and explain their reasoning in written and verbal form.

By planting these seeds of mathematical thinking from an early age means that your child will be more likely to grow to love and appreciate the subject.

Negative attitudes towards maths can seriously impair progress and these activities are a fun, no-pressure way of promoting a positive attitude towards the subject (and keep young people occupied). Wherever possible, try to draw on the children's interests. For example, if they love to play with Lego then be sure to try incorporate Lego into the maths learning whenever possible (measure, geometry, statistics, etc)

In summary:

Be positive about maths, even when you are finding it difficult. As a parent you are the most important influence on students. Maths can be challenging but that is why people love it. Encourage a growth mindset (link) and reward effort and resilience rather than speed and intelligence.

Show your children that maths is all round, make maths part of your everyday lives. Encourage curiosity and do not worry about not knowing the material yourself - share the struggle with your child, work through it together. Getting over the struggle is where the magic happens.

Make maths fun! Play games that involve numbers and calculations and where possible draw on your child's interests.

For more details and examples on incorporating maths into daily tasks with your child, see our website www.mathsweek.ie.

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Maths in Everyday Household Tasks - MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Maths Week will take place from 14 - 22 Oct. 2023. We will have events and activities for all the family. Visit MathsWeek.ie for more info MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Demonstrate key math concepts in your classroom using our new virtual manipulatives!

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Bookcase Maths: Teaching Maths Through Your Bookshelves | NRICH

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Books are a great way of introducing children to new mathematical concepts. Picture books provide an entertaining and engaging context for practising recall of number facts, such as adding and counting in the Early Years. They can also encourage pupils to solve
real-life problems, thinking about how they could help the characters in the story. For older children, books can link together mathematical ideas and provide a rich environment for thinking in more depth about different areas of maths.

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Official education portal of the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland. Curriculum focused resources and support for primary and post primary teachers.

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Our booklist includes a selection of the best maths-themed story books that open opportunities to explore a range of mathematical concepts.

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This shed is designed to include resources for maths at home. Children spend a large part of their life at home with their parents and anything home can do to help children with their learning can be...

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Senior Primary Poster 2024- Math and music - MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Maths Week will take place from 12 - 20 Oct. 2024. We will have events and activities for all the family. Visit MathsWeek.ie for more info MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Maths Week will take place from 12 - 20 Oct. 2024. We will have events and activities for all the family. Visit MathsWeek.ie for more info MATHS WEEK IRELAND

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Creating Maths Problem Pictures and Posters - Have You Got Maths Eyes

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Creating Maths Eyes posters is a fun and engaging way to develop your mathematical skills and creativity. With a little bit of imagination and creativity, anyone can create a poster that captures the beauty of real-life mathematics. So why not give it a try and see where your Maths Eyes take you?"

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Here's an easy activity to get you started. Go for a walk in a nearby park, or head for your garden if you have one, and collect 5-10 sticks. Now sort the sticks in order of length.

2. Obstacle Walk

Design an obstacle course outdoors using existing markers such as tree trunks or park benches, or set up markers using natural materials like sticks or rocks. Take it in turns with one person being blind folded, and the other using directional language such as forwards, backwards, turn left, turn right, quarter turn etc. to navigate the blind folded person through the course.

3. Shape Hunt

Whether you live in a rural or an urban area, head outside for a walk around your local neighbourhood to see what shapes you can discover. Some will be easier to spot than others. In the countryside, look out for leaves or petals of plants, details of buildings or fences, and way markers. If you live in the city, you can find a lot of different shapes hidden among traffic and street signs, road markings, or architectural features. Check out our previous post for more tips on how to go on a Shape Hunt.

4. Geocaching

Navigate your way to one of the many geocaches hidden worldwide using GPS. Geocaching is a location-based activity, where seekers use coordinates to find the hidden caches. A cache is typically a waterproof container with some kind of logbook inside, which you sign once you've found the cache. Some larger caches also contain items for trading, such as little trinkets. Go to www.geocaching.com/play and choose a geocache near you, then let the search begin! The Geocaching mobile app can help you along the way too.

5. Stick Maze

Collect sticks of different lengths and lay them out into a maze. Get a friend to navigate the maze using a pebble or other nature object as a marker. Or you could build a life size maze out of lots of sticks, for your friend to walk through!

6. Measuring Challenge

For this activity, you'll need a ruler. A pencil and paper, and maybe a clipboard to lean on, can also be helpful if you want to record your findings. Grab your ruler and head outside for some measuring fun!

Find something smaller than 1 inch, and something bigger than 10 inches.

Measure a blade of grass, a flower stem, or the length and width of a leaf.

If you are going out in a group, compare your findings to see who measured the smallest or biggest, longest or widest.

7. Making Potions

Making potions is a fun activity involving counting and measuring. Children can use containers, measuring cups or weighing scales to measure the weight and volume of 'ingredients' such as petals, leaves, pebbles, seeds etc. Mix them together with some water to create a 'potion'. Can they follow a recipe? Can they create their own recipe?

8. Pattern Hunt

If you've tried our Shape Hunt (Day 3), why not try a Pattern Hunt next! What kinds of patterns can you spot in your garden or neighbourhood? Look for different tree barks, arrangements of flower petals, or insect markings such as spots on a ladybird or symmetrical patterns on butterfly wings. If you live in a more urban area, you can find patterns outdoors in things like paving stones, brick walls, or window and door arrangements.

9. Make a Sundial

Reading a clock to tell the time is one of the maths skills children learn at primary school. But before there were modern clocks, people used other methods to tell the time, such as sun dials. In simple terms, a fixed object on a sunny day will cast a shadow and as the sun moves across the sky that shadow will change position. Make a sundial together, then head outside to put it in to action. The BBC Sky at Night website has a good paper sundial tutorial.

10. Mini Beast Survey

Head out to look for mini beasts together, such as earthworms, slugs and snails, slaters, beetles, spiders or caterpillars. Keep a tally of how many of each you spot. This is an great exercise to introduce children to collecting and sorting data, and counting in blocks of five. You can also use the opportunity to talk about probability, and estimate what kind of mini beasts and how many you will find depending on the time of year and weather (hot or cold, wet or dry).

11. Noughts & Crosses

Play a game of noughts & crosses outdoors using different natural materials such as leaves and pebbles as the markers. Use one kind of material to represent the noughts, and one for the crosses. You'll need five markers each. Make the grid out of sticks, or take along a piece of chalk to draw a grid on the ground.

12. Maths Photography

Grab your camera and head outdoors to take some pictures for this year's 'Maths Inside' photography competition. It's open to anyone in Scotland, and encourages people to look for the maths around them in their everyday lives. You'll find more info on the Maths Inside website.

13. Find the Fractals

A fractal is a pattern that repeats itself over and over again at different scales, with any small part similar, though not always identical, to the whole. The repetition that occurs in a fractal is called "self-similarity". Another way to think of this is that when you zoom in on a small part of a fractal pattern, it looks similar to the whole thing. There are lots of examples of fractals in nature, a prime example being trees - from the trunk, to the branches, to the smallest twigs and even the veins on the leaves, the branching pattern repeats itself. Take some time outside to let children observe this.

Other examples of fractals you may find include fern fronds, rock formations and clouds, or cauliflower and broccoli at your local greengrocers. Depending on where you live, you can also observe fractals in river deltas, coastlines, or mountain formations.

14. Morse Code

Head out after sunset for an evening walk and bring along a set of torches. Try to go somewhere with not too many streetlights, such as a local park, but make sure you stay safe! Use the torches to communicate with each other via Morse Code - a short flash of light represents the dots, while a long flash represents the dashes. The CBBC website has a copy of the Morse Code alphabet for reference, plus a wee quiz to test your Morse Code knowledge.

15. How many legs?

This activity is similar to the mini beast hunt from Day 10, but this time we're on the lookout for all kinds of creatures, big and small! How many creatures can you spot with 2 legs, 4 legs, 6 legs, or 8 legs? Can you find any with more than 8 legs? Or no legs at all? Keep a tally of how many creatures you spot for each number of legs, then work out how many legs you've spotted in total. This is a great activity for counting (how many of each), multiplication (e.g. 5 creatures with 4 legs each = 20 legs), and addition (adding everything together at the end). You could do this activity as a team, or see who can spot the most legs.

16. Egg Race

This activity requires several people to play. For each player, you will need ten plastic eggs (or something similar, such as pompoms, ping pong balls or even pinecones), a spoon, and a bowl. The players place their eggs (or egg alternatives) on their spoon, and race them one at a time to the finish line, where they drop them in their bowl. If they drop an egg along the way, that egg is lost and they go back to the starting point for a new egg. Once all eggs have been transported, players count how many eggs they successfully took across the finish line and deduct that number from 10. The player with the highest score wins.

17. Nature Walk

Whether you live in an urban or rural area, a nature walk is a perfect activity to teach children about directional language such as clockwise, anticlockwise, right turn, left turn, quarter turn etc. Discuss the route you will take before heading out, and while you are on your walk ask children to describe where you are going. If you can, take along a map to practice reading grid co-ordinates, e.g. "What's the name of the street at C5 on the map?" or "What are the co-ordinates of our school?"

18. Angle Hunt

Let's have some fun outside with angles! Give children a square piece of card, with one corner marked as 90°(right angle) - this is their 'angle hunter'. They can use this to identify things that have right angles, things with angles greater than 90° (obtuse angles) or less than 90° (acute angles), e.g. angles of branches, the offshoots of plants, or manmade things such as parts of buildings. For a more advanced activity, children can use protractors to measure different angles outdoors more precisely. What's the smallest angle they can find? And the largest?

19. How Much is 100?

This activity is all about understanding that the size of an object doesn't affect the value of the object. Depending on what natural resources you have available to you - such as sticks, pebbles, leaves, blades of grass, acorns, pinecones etc. - pick 3 to 4 different items, and get children to collect 100 of each item and lay them out in sets. Since 100 is a very big number, it helps to break it down in to groups of 10 items at a time, until you get to 100.

This activity covers different aspects: counting, grouping by 10, and comparing different sets of 100. How can the sets all be the same (100 items) but also different (some take up more space, some less)?

20. Build a Birdhouse

Building a birdhouse or nest box together is great activity to practice your knowledge of angles, shapes and measuring. The RSPB have a step-by-step guide for how to make a bird box. This will require help from an adult.

21. Repeating Patterns

Collect some nature items, such as leaves, pebbles, small pinecones, acorns, shells or feathers, and arrange them in a repeating pattern. See if children can copy or continue the pattern, then challenge them to create patterns of their own. You could also use different types of leaves to make patterns based on leaf shape, which requires some closer observation skills, e.g. leaves that are a similar shape and size but have smooth versus serrated edges.

22. Investigating Circles

We've been out measuring the length and width of nature items (Day 6), now it's time to get to grips with investigating circles. Use a measuring tape to measure the circumference e.g. of flower pots, tree stumps, or other circular objects found outside. If you don't have a measuring tape, you can use a piece of string and then measure that with a ruler afterwards. What's the biggest circle you can find? And the smallest?

To take it further, watch our 'Learn with Will' videos to learn more about measuring circles, including using π (pi) to work out the circumference. Will you get the same results as with your measuring tape?

23. Pi Spotting

If you watched the videos from yesterday's activity (Day 22), you'll have learned all about π (pi). Pi is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Regardless of the circle's size the ratio will always equal pi, approximately 3.14 though its decimals are infinite. The first twenty digits of pi are 3.1415926535897932384. Use the digits as a guide for an 'eye spy' spotting game, taking it in turns to suggest something to spot next: 3 birds, 1 tree, 4 flowers, 1 river... how far along pi can you get?

As a follow up, make one of our pi necklaces to help you remember the digits of pi!

24. Tower of Hanoi

The Tower of Hanoi is a fun logic puzzle, consisting of three rods and a stack of discs of decreasing size. The aim is to move the discs from the first to the last rod, according to certain rules. You can recreate this puzzle with natural materials - instead of rods, use sticks (or chalk) to mark out a grid of three squares. Then collect leaves of different sizes in place of the discs. Watch out Tower of Hanoi video for full instructions on how to play.

25. Nature Art

Working individually or as a team, use natural materials such as leaves, pinecones, acorns, pebbles, sticks or feathers to create artworks. Include a mathematical twist by incorporating repeating patterns or lines of symmetry.

26. Bird Watching

Head to a park or even your garden with binoculars. What feathered friends can you spot? Use a field guide or the RSPB website to identify as many as you can! Keep a tally of how many of each different kind of bird you spot. Just like the Mini Beast Survey (Day 10), this is a great exercise for introducing children to collecting and sorting data, and counting in blocks of five.

27. Stick Race

If you have a stream or river near you, race sticks down flowing water with a friend. Start at the same time and choose a marker for a 'finish line'. Estimate whose stick will win, based on weight and dimensions of your sticks. Experiment with different types of sticks, or see how creative you can get with a homemade boat (use only natural materials, and nothing that would pollute the environment if it got washed away).

28. Finding Fibonacci

The Fibonacci Sequence is a sequence in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on. This pattern and its numbers are found a lot in nature. For example, many flowers have 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 or more petals. Why not put this to the test and count some petals on your next walk?

If you square each Fibonacci number (1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 5x5 and so on) and arrange them clockwise in sequential order, a spiral can be formed by connecting the corners with a curve. The curves of many animal horns, claws, beaks or tusks follow this spiral. Keep a look out for this next time you visit a zoo or farm.

Other examples of the Fibonacci numbers or curve in nature include snail shells, sunflowers heads, pinecones, pineapples, Romanesque broccoli, the furled fronds of young ferns, and some aloe plants. Where can you find Fibonacci?

As a follow up, mathematician Vi Hart explains the mathematics behind the Fibonacci Sequence is a fun and very accessible way, in her three-part video series.

29. Nature Diagram

Once children have had some experience sorting and categorising objects based on one variable (size, colour, shape etc), they can progress to sorting objects with more variables that have 'overlapping' features. Venn Diagrams - represented by two or more overlapping circles - are one way of visually representing data where different sets have something in common.

Use hoops or draw circles with chalk to create the diagram. Now children can sort collected nature items based on different and shared features. Taking leaves as an example, in one circle place any leaves that are green and in the other any leaves that have a serrated edge. Any leaves that are both green AND serrated would be placed in the area where the circles overlap.

Are there other ways you could sort the leaves? What else do they have in common? You can try the same activity with other nature objects too.

30. Insect Investigation

A nice and simple activity to end 30 Days Wild on: Spot an insect and follow its path. Record your observations. What patterns does it make?

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Maths Outdoors: 30 Days Wild - Maths Week Scotland

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Here's an easy activity to get you started. Go for a walk in a nearby park, or head for your garden if you have one, and collect 5-10 sticks. Now sort the sticks in order of length. Design an obstacle course outdoors using existing markers such as tree trunks or park benches, or set up markers using natural materials like sticks or rocks.

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Maths Week Challenges - Maths Week Scotland

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Test your numeracy, logic and creativity skills with our Maths Week Scotland challenges & competitions

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Maths in the Real World Resource Pack - Maths Week Scotland

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This resource pack pulls together digital postcards, as well as videos and blog posts, that have been shared over the last four years of our Show Your Working campaign.

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Are you ready to play Maths Week Bingo? A fun way to keep track of all your Maths Week activities.