How was it used?

I used the 2 star activities with my Year 2 class. I found that the units were an ideal way of encouraging the children to apply their mathematical knowledge in solving problems.

I had the children work as a whole class, in groups, in pairs and individually for different activities thus providing opportunities to develop thinking and encouraging peer assessment.

I used one of the activities to help improve the children’s listening skills which at times can be quite poor. I found that boys responded particularly well to this.

I provided opportunities for the children to work on the units in their own time which allowed for all children to achieve success at their own level – I also found that their was plenty of scope to extend the more able and talented.

I gave the children the web address of activities and encouraged them to work on them with their parents. The feedback I had was extremely positive. Parents appreciate knowing what their children are doing in class and enjoy being able to get involved.

Impact and Outcomes

• These activities provide ample opportunity to develop the pupils’ numeracy skills. I enjoyed watching them meet the challenge of applying their numerical knowledge to solve these problems.
• The nature of the activities and the grouping of the children helped develop their thinking and group paired/discussion deepened their understanding of the mathematical concepts embedded within the problems.
• It’s not very often that you can use a maths activity to help improve literacy skills, but I found the Lost Bone activity a great way of improving both listening and comprehension skills. All too often children don’t listen fully to an instruction, but when faced with a competitive situation where it is imperative that they listen to filly to an instruction, I found that every single child paid really close attention to what was being said.
• Boys attainment in problem solving improved significantly – they have tended to give up when faced with a paper based problem in the past but because this was so interactive and at times competitive they responded extremely well to the challenge.
• The nature of the activities and the fact that the instructions are spoken to the children meant that I could allow the children to work on the problems with little teacher input – allowing them to work at their own pace and achieve success at their own level.
• By having the children work in pairs on tasks – one doing the work and then the other checking allowed for peer assessment and a deeper understanding of the mathematical concepts.
• The work allowed for extension activities to stretch the more able and talented while still working on the same concept as the rest of the class

Learner Feedback

'I have thoroughly enjoyed working on the puppy problems with my son. He was very keen to show me what to do’

‘I was amazed at what my grandson could do’

‘Its nice to be able to share in the activities my daughter does in school’

Other Resources

Laminated Puppies, counters, plastic puppies, 3 wicker baskets, plastic money, Role play shop, printed plan of the garden

Lessons Learnt

I think that sending web links home and allowing parents to become involved in the activities we have been involved with in class worked really well and I would like to do more of this. The children enjoyed explaining to their parents what they needed to do – in effect they became the teacher rather than the pupil.