Each day, we spend at least 15 minutes working on improving our skills and knowledge in Mental Maths. So what does a typical week look like…

MondayStrategies

We look at a range of strategies we can employ to help us calculate mentally. eg compatible numbers, partitioning.

TuesdayFifties Club

We race against the clock (3 mins) to answer the 50 times table problems as fast and as accurately as we can. If we get them all right, we move up to the next level. Sam, Sarah and Ayesha are yet to make a mistake!

WednesdayNUMERO

As a class, we play the card game NUMERO in small groups. The game was orignally developed  by Frank Drysdale  who I fortunate enough to meet when he was first introducing the game to schools. http://www.numero.org/about/

My class really enjoy it and are getting to the stage where I now fear of being beaten!!

ThursdayHandicaps

Given a starting number, students have to either add or subtract a number and continue on with the pattern for as long as they can within a two minute timeframe,  eg 299 + 6 = 305,311,317,323…….

The top three students each receive a handicap  which is added to over time. ie 1st – 15 sec, 2nd -10sec, 3rd – 5 sec

Our current top 10 are:

110 secs   Jake (I have never had anone get this far before)

90 secs     Tyrell

85 secs    Chad

70 secs   Amy, Sarah, Jim, Jhon

FridayGames/Challenges

We play a variety of other games and challenges each Friday to help us practise our speed and thinking skills.