Save thousand

A game with dice. 

Roll a 1-6-dice and choose the value of the dice to stand for hundreds, tens or units digit. After five types you have to be as close to 1000 as possible.

Viktor and Paula save to a thousand.

Think thousand

Each student drew up a game plan with 9 boxes. Like this:

Then we rolled a 1-6 dice and the students had to put the number anywhere they liked. When I got 9 numbers and all the boxes were filled you had to sum up the three-digit numbers. Anyone who received a total closest to 1000 won. 

Christoffer sums up. 

Look how happy Linn was when she won the sum 998.

It was a very popular practice and the class said "one more time ..." so we spent some time with this amazing exercise. I heard several comments that "this was great", "can we do this throughout the lesson?" So it was a success!

The path of numbers

Another tip from Margareta Forsbäck!

We drew up a game plan on the board, consisting of a path of boxes. We wrote 0 in the first box and 1000 in the last box. Then we rolled three 1-9 dice and wondered what numbers these three figures could form. The chosen number was placed in an appropriate place along the path. The goal is to produce numbers that can be placed in all blocks from 0 to 1000. The students were taking turns to roll the dice and choose which number that would be formed and placed in the path. 

Robin found a great box for his number.

Blob

You roll with three dice and then using the three figures to form a number between 1 and 42, you can use the four operations. For example 3 + 6-1 = 8, you then receive one point. You get an extra point for each adjacent square that is already taken. If you can´t make any free number you get a blob. The game ends when someone has three blotches (or whatever you determine yourself) and the one which has the most points wins.

This exercise practising concentration and mental arithmetic. It's also a lot of fun! 

Math-warm up

As a little warm up on the maths lesson you can do this little exercise as I did today in grade 5. Think I got the tip from Margareta Forsbäck. It can be adapted for use in all grades. Begin by distributing the paper in which students write a big equal sign on one side and a crossed out an equation on the other side. 

Then, put statements on the board, like 0.2  2/10 or 1/2  6/3 and let the students show up right sign. The class is immediately activated and hopefully even the rest of the lesson. 

Magnets

We are no learning about magnets. In Hans Persson's "Book of Physics and Chemistry", there is a task were you can build obstacle courses that are run with the help of magnets. Using cardboard, the children built ramps and fun figures to run with. The figures are attached to a paper clip and can be run from start to finish using a magnet held under the track. The children had so much fun that some did not even want to go to recess. Here are some of the results:

Last week we had a practical test. Again, it was Hans Persson and his books that inspired me. They got 3 small magnets of various kinds, and they should then answer the question "Which magnet is the best?" It was up to the children to interpret the question (the best at what?) and preparing tests to decide.

Joanna and Julia wanted to test the magnetic strength by starting with an empty container (they used a pencil pouch) and then fill it gradually. A good idea!

Amanda and Matilda raced the magnets against each other on the whiteboard. They attached a small weight (my keys) to the magnet. They then measured the time it took each magnet to slide down the whiteboard.

Another test was to find out how many paper clips a magnet can pull up from a glass of water.

A popular test was to see how many paper clips a magnet could hold hanging in a chain.

We also constructed an electromagnet. First, we concluded that a large iron nail was not magnetic. Then we wrapped it in copper wire and connected it to a 4.5 V battery. As long as the battery stayed connected the nail worked as a magnet and we could use it to lift up some smaller nails.

Remainder rally

I got the game "Remainder rally" from Margareta Forsbäck.

It is a paper filled with numbers in a "meandering" line. All players start in the field where it says 17. You roll a dice and ask yourself "How many times does x (depending on what the dice show) "fit" in 17?" The remainder is the number of steps you can move forward.

Whoever comes first to the end of line wins!