At our bespoke school in Bangkok, mathematics lends itself to connections in all areas of learning. Inspired by the story ‘The Toys’ Party’, Year One children explored the elements of planning a party themselves. Following a process of ‘mathematical modelling’, children generated ideas of what would need to be done, sequenced them, then determined a fair voting system to make decisions. The decision-making process promotes critical thinking, communication, and reasoning and proving – all mathematical processes.
The children composed invitations, which integrated literacy through writing with geometric design and spatial relationships, and creating decorations promoted analysis, extension, and creation of patterns. Problem -solving involving fair sharing is the precursor to division; here the children practiced mathematical sharing through numbers, words, and pictures, when exploring gift bags for the party.
Baking a cake promoted procedural text, sequencing and ordering.
As part of our inquiry-based learning approach, children explored measurement through questions such as:
How much of each ingredient do we need to add? What will happen if we put too much in the mixture? How do we know if we are putting enough of each ingredient? How can we make sure we use the right amount?
Mochi bear is a tool used to teach coding and algorithmic thinking to our year one children. They mapped pathways to the store to purchase materials for the party and explored the diversity of pathways they could code for.
Exploring the process of planning a party allowed children to build connections between different strands of maths in a real life situation.
