World Maritime Day - FREE iPad activity

29th September 2016 marks the World Maritime Day Forum 2016. A large debate will be going on with four panellists, all about the challenges that global shipping faces. The information page on the day has lots of useful information  about the theme, so take a look if you are interested. You can also check out @IMOHQ, the International Maritime Organization's Twitter page, plus the hashtag #WorldMaritimeDay.

To join in ourselves, we have transformed one of our Digital Mysteries iPad apps into a FREE Thinking Kit activity: Captain Quint. Students are asked to work out what they think happened when Captain Quint and his crew aimed to sail round the world in 50 days. The activity is aimed at those around age 10-12 and works on a whole bunch of mathematics skills, plus collaboration, thinking skills and problem-solving! Cards include maps, tables, lots of story-based clues and hints about what the characters are like.

To download it:

1. Download the Thinking Kit App if you haven't already - search the title on the App Store or click here.
2. Open the app, tap Educator or Learner then Download Task.
3. Enter the code 7017.

A screenshot of the activity within the app.

Full activity description

This activity maps to the maths curriculum. Specifically:

• Number – addition and subtraction
• Number – multiplication and division
• Number – fractions (including percentages)
• Statistics
• Measurement

Although the calculation involved in Captain Quint requires precision, the task is open-ended and provides scope for pupils to come up with and justify more than one possible scenario.

The task will challenge pupils to decide and justify to each other which operations and methods they need to use to solve a multistep problem.  As well as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, some calculations also involve fractions and knowledge of percentage and fraction equivalents. Pupils will need to interpret information in tables, graphs and maps and be able to compare and calculate different measures, involving capacity and distance over time.

It could be used diagnostically within the maths curriculum to assess pupils’ confidence in recognising and applying these concepts.

This task was originally designed with three difficulty levels in mind. By default, the task is the 'hard' option as it has all cards included. In the Thinking Kit Creator, you can edit the activity. For Medium difficulty, delete card 26. For Easy difficulty, delete cards 21-26.

Storytelling through mathematics

Today, I came across Maths Storytelling Day (25th September, celebrated annually). Although the day isn't for a while yet, it got me thinking.

When pondering my own education, I remember maths being one of the subjects which incorporated stories fairly regularly. A favourite being that of making a robot move around and follow your instructions, which in today's education, could probably slide under computing. I always thought that it was perhaps my teacher's style, but upon reflection, and with a particular day dedicated to it, it has become apparent that the reason we do maths through storytelling is because it works!

There's various pieces online about this (found with a quick search), but I'll be looking more into this in future. The Guardian and NRICH are two particularly good ones. To quote the latter, "Children are born with an ability to make sense of the world through play and storytelling. By creating narratives, they act out concepts and ideas that confuse them or that they find fascinating. Examining the world in this way they are able to explore and relate to the variety of topics and subjects that the world throws at them."

Many of our iPad apps follow a story, but our maths ones are particularly engaging. They really do make you want to solve something, e.g. work out who really did kill King Ted. You want to find out what has or has not happened, and the way to do this is to do the maths! We have made all three of our apps FREE for a limited time, except King Ted, which is always free.

Students work in pairs or threes around one iPad. The app gives students lots of digital slips of illustrated information then one open question - they must work together to make sense of this information in order to answer it.They can create and name groups, stick things together and lay the slips out. As well as developing various mathematics skills, the apps also help with collaboration, problem-solving and higher level thinking.

All three apps target a slightly different age range but depending on ability level, what methods the children know/will be learning soon, they may suit younger or older students:

King Ted - FREE - Search 'Digital Mysteries King' on the App Store or click here
Main question: Who killed King Ted?
Age range: 8-9 year olds
Topics covered: Mental methods addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, comparing, calculations

Screenshot from Trev the Triff

Trev the Triff - FREE for limited time, usually £1.49 - Search 'Digital Mysteries Trev' on the App Store or click here
Main question: Should Trev hire the new machine or stick with the old one?
Age range: 9-10 year olds
Topics covered: Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, multi-step problem, averages

Captain Quint - FREE until 16th June 2015, usually £1.49 - Search 'Digital Mysteries Captain' on the App Store or click here
Main question: Did Captain Quint and his crew make it around the world in 30 days?
Age range: 10-11 year olds
Topics covered: Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percentages, statistics, measurement

Many thanks,

Natalie