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Supporting your child in problem solving. Aims of the evening:. To explain the process of problem solving in the primary school and the vocabulary used. To explain the links between problem solving, reasoning and communicating.
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Aims of the evening: • To explain the process of problem solving in the primary school and the vocabulary used. • To explain the links between problem solving, reasoning and communicating. • To suggest ways of helping and supporting your child with maths at home.
Children as problem solvers • From well before school age children solve problems • In EYFS they are encouraged to solve real life problems • As they move through the school it is important they continue to solve problems for application of skills and motivation. • In later life, both at home and in work, problem solving is important.
What kind of problems? • Not just word problems • Real situations, or simulations of them (parties, trips, sharing pizza etc) • Puzzles and artificial mathematical situations
What qualities do we want to grow in children? • Confidence • Risk taking • Curiosity • Perseverance
The skills • Smash it into smaller pieces • Draw a diagram • Try a simpler case • Make a list/table • Look for a pattern • Trial and improvement • Be systematic • Act it out
Your turn! • If you shook hands with everyone in your group, how many handshakes would that be? What if there were one person more/fewer? Can you find a pattern?
What if you changed the problem slightly... • For instance if everyone in your group sent a Christmas card to everyone else in the group, how many cards would be sent in total? • How about if everyone clinked glasses instead of shaking hands?
Which of the skills did you use? • Smash it into smaller pieces • Draw a diagram • Try a simpler case • Make a list • Look for a pattern • Trial and improvement • Be systematic • Act it out
How many triangles can you see? • http://www.transum.org/Software/sw/Starter_of_the_day/Starter_September23.asp
Which of the skills did you use? • Smash it into smaller pieces • Draw a diagram • Try a simpler case • Make a list • Look for a pattern • Trial and improvement • Be systematic • Act it out
What questions help? • Where do you think you could start? • Have you seen anything like this before? • How will you keep track of what you’ve done? • How many different ways can you...? • What if...?
Bipods and tripods • Bipods have 2 legs and tripods 3. • If you see 23 legs, how many bipods and tripods might there be? • Is there more than one answer? • Have you found all the ways? • Can you convince me you have found all the ways?
Higher order thinking skills • Proof • Generalisation • Prediction • Evaluation
Helping your child • Be curious and fascinated by maths in the real world and in puzzles – seek them out. • Listen to your child, collaborate with your child, be interested in their fascinations. • Thinking games such as traffic jam and traditional strategy games such as chess and backgammon all build the key skills of perseverance.
Starting young • How could we...? • Have we enough? • What comes next? How do you know? • How many ways are there? What’s the best way to..? • Build the tallest.... • Make a pattern • Who has the longest name/widest smile, largest hand....
An excellent website which the school uses is nrich maths. There are many resources there for children to use at home. http://nrich.maths.org/frontpage