Developing Rich Mathematical Tasks – Mathematical starting point
What if’s‌.
On 24 January 2011 there were 550 days to go until the opening ceremony for the Olympics
If you are an athlete preparing for this event how much time do you have left?
The Paralympics will take place 33days later. What date will this be?
What if the family and friends of international athletes want to be watching TV in their own countries to support them?
What do you know that would help you to begin with? Eg this is more than a year away Less than 2 years 7 more days before the end of January It will be after 2011 Grouping in 30s might help to work out approx how many months Questions and tasks What is the day and date for these events? Will the opening ceremonys be in 2012 or 2013- how do you know? About how many weeks or months is this? So what time of the year will they take place How old will you be for each opening ceremony? What time of day does the opening ceremony start for the competing countries? Between now and then we have 11 Nov 2011 (11/11/11) what other interesting dates are there between now and then? Eg 21/02/2012 What do you know
Desired outcomes for learning Can the children use their number sense and understanding/ fact recall of days in a month and year to begin to predict the month the event will fall in?
Possible Processes Recalling facts about measuring of time: weeks, months, year Adding and subtracting time differences and considering time zones
The Hampshire Mathematics Advisory Team MB/Jan 2008