This activity offers an opportunity for pupils to explore geometry and arithmetic in a simple and appealing way. It also has potential to be opened out by the pupils asking "I wonder what would happen if I ...?"

It would be good to start off with an example done as a whole group together. You could have a circle drawn on the interactive whiteboard, or ordinary board, and start with just three cuts, then build up to more. Encourage children to articulate their strategy for maximising the number of pieces.

Did you find a good way of doing this?

Tell me what you have done.

Can you get more pieces by cutting in a different way?

Some learners can take this further by looking at a whole series of different numbers of cuts.

It will be useful for pupils to have something that they can "cut up", such as discs of paper or card, or you could print this sheet of circles for them to draw in the lines.