During the recent Eid celebrations, we had a day where maths sets in year 6 were not practical. To keep the day engaging and enjoyable for those who did attend, we held two maths sessions using Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii. We were again focusing on creating data to calculate averages e.g. mean, mode and median. During the first session we had children in a two player challenge creating data by recording their placement scores at the end of the race. This was repeated several times to create the data for all children to calculate the averages. Whilst all children enjoyed watching the races, I did not feel that all were as engaged as they could be even though it was quite a small group.
The second session was much more succesful. I had children in teams of three lined up. As soon as the passed over the finish line at the end of thier lap, they passed the controller onto the child behind and went to record their end of lap position on the board. This moved much quicker as all children were only doing one lap each and created much more data. Whilst the children playing were watching thier team mates, I had the DS's out on the tables for the others. They were using Brain Training and used the daily training tasks. This way all were engaged at all times. The quick change overs keep the interest levels much higher and generated more data which enhanced the calculations required for the averages at the end of the session.
This session was summed up by one of my children who parting comment was " Can we do this again soon? I normally don't like maths Miss, but today was fun and I learnt loads. I know I can do averages now."
On a slightly different note I thought I might add my children's thoughts about our recent purchase of 6 Nintendo DSs. They are being used daily during maths using Brain Training but we have also recently started using them during Guided Reading sessions ( just in my class). I have purchased My Word Coach and Spellbound. I have a very large percentage of EAL leaners in my class and finding ways to develop thier vocabulary and spelling has always been a challenge. A different group of 6 children use the DS every day and the response has been very positive. The children so far seem to enjoy My Word Coach more as it gives them the opportunity to learn (and understand) a wider range of vocab ( a current class literacy target) and it also is quite quick to adapt to thier level of need. We have only had these titles for a short time and I look foward to blogging more about thier use and impact.
Sandra
Year 6 Mayespark Primary
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