Maths Like a Pirate

Each week we like to do a "Maths Like a Pirate" challenge. Working in teams of three, we have to use engineering, problem solving and math skills as well as a lot of communication and cooperation in order to complete the challenge. We never know who will be in our team, so we have to learn to work with all sorts of different children.

For our first challenge we were given 6 sheets of newspaper and 60cm of masking tape and we had to make a hat for each pirate in our team. No scissors allowed!  Oh that was hard!  Lots of us didn't manage to make a successful hat.

We had to answer three questions: What was difficult about the challenge?  What would you do differently next time?  and Where was the maths in this challenge?
We really thought hard about our answers.

The next day we repeated the challenge with much more success. Unfortunately Mrs Mac forgot to take any photos. Oh dear!

This week we had another challenge.  We could use any amount of newspaper and sellotape to build a bridge between two chairs.  We had to be able to drive a toy car across the bridge.  Here are some photos to show our first attempts.

 Hunter and Eli had the longest bridge, but it wasn't very strong.

 Molly, Ethan and Daniel folded the newspaper to make it stronger.

 Sam, Bou and Victor knew that bridges need to be anchored by supports. 

 Brie, Annabel and Ebony knew that too. Both groups used LOTS of tape.

 Mya, Alex and Lylla made a wide bridge.

 Duncan, Ben and Tanner put a roof over their bridge.

 Harry and Amelia rolled newspaper to make a support and also folded newspaper to make approaches and to make their deck stronger.

Riley, Jamie and Marnie used the chairs to support their deck. 

After the holidays we will repeat this challenge.  I wonder how we will improve our bridges?