Evelina Hospital School Roadshows 2019-2020

Age
3 to 18

Project



NRICH is leading a series of six Roadshow sessions with students and teaching staff at the Evelina Hospital School, London.  These are taking place during the academic year 2019-20. On this page you can find details about each sessions and the resources used in them.

Roadshow 1, 10/10/19

Mathematical Strategy Games

This Roadshow was focussed on two player games. These activities fit very well with the structure of sessions delivered on the wards for several reasons:

  • They are quick, engaging and strategies for winning can be developed in a single session.
  • The mathematical thinking involved in developing a strategy can then be applied to another game in a different session.
  • Each game can be revisited and extended by playing it in a slightly different way. This could be done across several sessions.
  • The activities have a very high ceiling because as each game is played in a different way number patterns start to appear and can be generalised.

To start, play a few games against the student and encourage them not to worry about who wins or who loses. Then as they start to notice things you can encourage them to develop and test strategies.

Below is a list of the most suitable Roadshow games and some very brief notes. The hyperlinks take you to the NRICH page for each activity. On those pages you can find teachers' resources pages containing reasons for playing the game, approaches to teaching it, good questions, extensions and support. 

 

 Activity Quick notes and extension opportunities

(see teachers' resources pages for more details)
 Two Stones
  • The simplest of these games suitable for the least able.
  • Figuring out how to trap someone is the main outcome.
 Fifteen
  • The ability to add up three single digit numbers is essential.
  • Magic squares can be made to turn the game into noughts and crosses.
 Online
  • This is a nice companion to fifteen as it also a version of noughts and crosses.
 NIM
  • Add an extra counter to start with 8, then 9, 10 and so on.
  • Change the rules so that you can remove 1, 2 or 3 counters.
 Pentanim
  • Allow 3 counters to be removed at once.
  • Only allow two counters to be removed if they are directly next to each other.
 One, Three, Five, Seven
  • Starting with 1, 2, and 3 counters is an easier approach
 Last Biscuit
  • Increase the starting counter amounts.

 

 



Roadshow 2, 28/11/19

Tangram Activities

 

This Roadshow was focussed on Tangrams and their effective use. Tangrams are engaging puzzles which help develop problem solving skills such as resilience and strategic thinking. Perhaps their greatest strength in the setting of a hospital school is that it's possible to teach a wide variety of different topics through them. Good examples of topics are:

  • Maths vocabulary
  • Angles
  • Fractions, decimals and percentages
  • Types of shape
  • Area

The key to developing this thinking in students in a short session is the questioning used. Without giving anything away try to encourage them to describe what they are doing and why.

During the Roadshow we used the following NRICH activities:

 Activity

 Notes
 Egg Tangram
  • This is harder than it looks!
  • The pieces are bespoke curved Tangram pieces, there are printable versions on the activity page.
 Tangrams
  • These are sets of shapes which can be made with the seven original Chinese tangram pieces.
  • There is a digital environment on the website which can be accessed using iPads so that Tangrams can be solved without the physical versions to hand.
  • There are over 10,000 numbered pages on the NRICH website and this is page 1.
 Square Tangrams
  • This again uses bespoke unusual tangram pieces. They are actually made by joining together some of the seven original Chinese tangram pieces.

 

 

 



Roadshow 3, 22/01/20

Sequences and Dominoes 



This Roadshow was focussed on the use of dominoes in three main ways:

  • Counting and sequences
    • We looked at three NRICH activities (below) involving sequences using dominoes.
    • Getting students creating their own patterns and questions is an excellent creative challenge for them. Ask them to make you a really hard question!
    • This is a nice physical way to bridge the gap between early years counting skills and further developed skills.
  • NRICH logic problems using dominoes
    • I brought four of the most appropriate NRICH activities for the setting of a hospital school.
  • Spotting patterns
    • We looked at how just investigating the patterns of spots in dominoes can lead to some very interesting mathematics.

Dominoes, like Tangrams, can help engage students to take part in some mathematics. Regular dominoes are limited in how they only go up to 6 but printed 1-9 dominoes can be even better for many of the tasks we discussed. You can find printable 1-6 and 1-9 dominoes on the NRICH printable resources page.

 

 Activity

 Notes
 4DOM
  • Suitable for year key stage two upwards.
  • There is a version online which can be used on an iPad.
 Domino Square
  • This is the next step up from 4DOM but is still accessible by students of key stage 2 and above.
  • Encourage strategic thinking rather than trial and error.
 Domino Join Up
  • This is the easiest of the activities listed here but is excellent for pattern spotting.

 Domino Tetrads
  • This requires the largest space but is my favourite of the activities.
  • You can encourage students by setting them a target of copleting maybe 4 squares first, and then 5 and then see them really wanting to get to all 7.
  • Completing 7 squares is a lot harder than completing 6. Finishing the 7th is where all the strategic thinking and problem solving comes in.

 Counting and Sequences Activities

We looked at three different sequences sheets during the Roadshow they were:

 

Roadshow 4, 11/03/20

2D and 3D Spatial Reasoning

 Activity

 Notes
 Milk Crate
  • The simplest of the reasoning puzzles suitable for KS1 and above.
  • Can be extended by asking how many different solutions there are.
  • Can be extended further by looking at a 3x4 grid and asking how many different solutions there are.
 Teacups
  • This activity can be done in a 3x3 grid to start with to make it easier.
  • It could also be done with just the suacers and not the teacups. This in itself is a fascinating task, especially when exploring the number of different solutions.
 Pentominoes
  • This can be completed with multi-link, with square counters or by hand on squared paper.
  • It is an excellent way to introduce area and perimeter.
  • Encourage students to decide for themselves about whether reflections and rotations should be counted. The discussions around this can be the best learning point in the activity.
 Creating Cubes
  • It is excellent to have students work in pairs on this activity 
  • Beyond the initial task there is not a difficult extension to this activity, but it makes a great warm up for Four Colours and Nine Colours.
 Four Colours
  • Once students have finished the task, ask them if they spotted anything about the pattern they made or whether they had a strategy to solve it.
  • Is there only one possible solution or are there many?
 Nine Colours
  • This is a difficult activity but it is easy to access for students of all ability levels.
  • Encourage students to think about a strategy and put no pressure on them to finish the activity as getting all 6 faces completed is a real challenge.