It’s in the News! Teacher’s guide

5. It’s in the News! Teacher’s guide Next year (2012), as we all know, we will see thousands of people coming to our shores and visiting all those cities, particularly London, who are hosting Olympic events. The event itself is in the news fairly regularly. In our last issue we provided ideas around such things as these: the Olympic torch journey around the UK, the completion of the Velodrome in London and the first round of ticket sales. In this issue we provide ideas for the events themselves, their venues and timetables. This issue of It’s in the News! might provide useful suggestions if you are currently talking about the Olympics 2012. If not, it might prove helpful for when you do. … continued on the next slide

6. … continued This mini-series might provide useful suggestions if you are currently talking about this topic. If not, it might prove helpful for when you do. In these slides there are links to geography, PE and D&T. They give opportunities for work on a variety of mathematical concepts such as number, data handling and measurement including time. In this issue’s A little bit of history there is some information on the first Olympic Games in Ancient Greece. You might like to make this your starting point. Before you use the slides you might find it helpful to look at the following websites for further information: The official website of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, CBBC news, The Telegraph (torch route). … continued on the next slide

7. … continued Please note, that some of the news items may be out of date at the time of publication, but they will still provide great mathematical activities! This resource provides ideas that you can adapt to fit your classroom and your learners as appropriate. As always, we would be extremely grateful, to those of you who have looked at it, if you could give us some feedback on how you have used it, if it has worked well and how it can be improved.

8. 1st spread: What sports make up the Olympic Games? ● You could introduce these slides by discussing the history of the games with the children, using the information from this issue’s A little bit of history. They could make a timeline and plot the year of the first games onto it (776BC) and then 2012. They could then work out the difference in years between the two dates. Write up some of the other dates the Games has occurred e.g. 2008, 2004, 2000. Ask how often the Games takes place. Establish that they are every four years. What do they notice about them? You could explore these numbers but be sure to highlight the fact that these are all multiples of four. You could tell them that the first modern Olympic Games was in 1896 and ask them to work out how many times this event has taken place. You could ask the children to find out if they took place during WW1 and WW2 and adjust the number accordingly. ● Ask the children to think about what sports events the 2012 games might include. You could make a list of their suggestions. The Olympic website has a list of the sports that you can explore. When you click on a picture you will find the dates and venues of the sports, the number of people playing in the teams or individuals competing and the medal opportunities as well as a little of the history of each one and other information including a short video clip of the sport in action. Ask the children to pick one of these and to make up a mathematical fact-file that includes this information. ● The 26 sports are: archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, canoeing: slalom, sprint, cycling: BMX, mountain biking, road, track, diving, equestrian: dressage, eventing , jumping, fencing, football, gymnastic: artistic, rhythmic, trampoline, handball, hockey, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, synchronised swimming, table tennis, Taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, wrestling. The slide mentions 39 different events. Discuss what this might mean and then tell them about the different elements of such sports as the cycling: BMX, mountain biking, road and track. …continued on the next slide

9. 1st spread: What sports make up the Olympic Games?continued… ● Ask the children to think of two Olympic sports that, given the opportunity, they would like to see. Show their answers on a table. They could then use this information to create a pictogram, bar graph or pie chart. Once they have displayed their data, using one of these methods, they could then make up some statements to share with the rest of the class or make up some questions to ask them. ● Discuss the comments of Sally and Tammy. Do the children agree, do they think that football should be included in the Games or not? Have a vote in class and display the results in a one criteria Carroll diagram e.g. football, not football. Place the names of the children in the appropriate section, with any that can’t decide outside the diagram. You could do the same using a two criteria Venn diagram where the overlap is where they can’t decide. ● You could ask the children what they know about Tom Daley. They could research him on the internet and make up a profile of him with as much mathematical data as they can find e.g. date of birth, age, height, number of competitions entered, number of medals won. ● You could make a list of other famous sports personalities that have competed in the games and won gold medals. Ask the children to make up profiles about them in the same way as Tom. Here are a few to get you started: Olga Korbut (gymnastics) Michael Phelps (swimming) Mark Spitz (swimming), Carl Lewis (athletics), Usain Bolt (athletics). ● You could ask the children to look at the symbols which indicate several of the 26 sports and to identify what these are with reasons for their thinking. ● You could use the slide for some counting practice e.g. ask them to estimate how many people they can see in the symbols and then to count to see if they were correct. Discuss how they counted. Did they count the people one at a time or in pairs, did they see the pairs in the boxing and rowing symbols, add these first by doubling and count on from there? …continued on the next slide

10. 1st spread: What sports make up the Olympic Games?continued… ● Ask them to estimate how many hockey sticks there are and then to count to find out if they were correct. This would be good for practicing counting in steps of two. You could ask questions such as if there were double/half the number of hockey sticks how many would there be? If there were five more/less how many would that be? You could use this as an opportunity to reinforce number pairs to 10 and twenty by highlighting a certain number and then asking how many more to make five, ten, 15 and so on. You could also use them to practice finding the difference, for example, by saying there are five hockey stick in this corner of the slide and 15 on the rest of it, how many more are in this part. ● In Issue 35 we gave some ideas for how the children could explore the London Olympic Games logo. If you haven’t done this you might like to refer to that and give the children the opportunity to explore shape and space through the ideas given.

11. 2nd spread: Venues for the events in the UK ● In 2012, as we know, the Olympics is being hosted by London in the UK. Ask the children if they know of any countries that have hosted the games in the past, they could research this on the internet. When they have found some, e.g. Germany, Greece, France, USA, Sweden, Italy, Japan and Korea, you could ask them to find the host cities. They could then make up fact files for each city with mathematical information about, for example, population, temperature, rainfall, size and currency. They could use this information to compare the different places with each other and also London. ● You could locate these countries on a map of the world comparing their locations to the UK. You could ask them to work out distances from your location in the UK to given cities as the ‘crow flies’ using the scale on the map and practice converting from miles to kilometres and vice versa. ● You could discuss ways of getting to them e.g. car and ferry, plane. Using the distance information they calculated, they could estimate how long it would take to get from a London airport to one of these cities in a Boeing 747 flying at an average speed of 550mph. ● Focus on the information about the events taking place in different parts of the country. Beginning with the football, can they find the cities where the matches are taking place on the map of the UK? Again, they could research each city and make a fact file to show population, average rainfall etc. Repeat this for Weymouth and Portland. ● Have the children been to any of the cities or towns where these events are taking place? You could display this information in a table, diagram or graph. …continued on the next slide

12. 2nd spread: Venues for the events in the UKcontinued… ● You could give pairs or small groups of children copies of the map and ask them to use string, rulers and the scale on the map to find out the distances from their location to each of the venues (using main roads). They could find these in kilometres and then convert to miles to find out how long it would take to get to them if they travelled at different average speeds in miles per hour. They could give themselves a starting time and work out when they will arrive. ● They could plan a round trip from their home town to all the venues and work out the total distance. They could try various routes. Are they all the same length of journey or is there a quicker route that would be the best to take? ● They could describe their journeys using the compass directions N, S, E, W, or, if they are able to, they could include NE, NW, SE, SW. ● Ask them to research on the official Olympic 2012 website where the different events are taking place in London. It would be great to give them map of Greater London to plot their findings onto. As with the different venues in the UK, they could plan a route to all of these, work out the distance and how long it would take to cycle or walk at different average speeds in miles per hour. Could they visit each in one day or would it take longer?

13. 3rd spread: The timetable of the London 2012 Olympic events ● Look at the middle statement on the slide and ask the children to work out for how long the Games will be taking place. This would be a good opportunity to practice the number of days in each month. They could draw a number line and plot the dates from 25th July to 12th August onto it with the other dates labelled to help them work this time period out. ● You could show a diary page for 2012 and ask them to tell you on which day the Olympics start and finish. ● Ask questions from the section of the timetable shown e.g. during this part of the Games ….Which event is on for the longest/shortest period? How many days is the weight lifting happening? How many more days does the water polo take place than the swimming? What events are happening on the first Sunday, the last Wednesday etc? On which date are the least events taking place? On which date are the most events taking place? Which events happen over the weekend? Why does the triathlon only take place twice? If they can’t think of an answer to the last question they could find out using the internet. ● You could give them copies of the official daily timetable of which this slide is part. You could ask them to answer the questions above using the full timetable. They could make up their own questions to ask a friend. They could also make up some statements from the timetable to share with the class. If you want to challenge their reasoning skills you could ask them to use the information to make up some always, sometimes, never statements which, as a class, you could discuss and place in appropriate piles. ● You could give them copies of the daily events schedule and ask them to make up a timetable for one or two days with the exact timings, as they might see on a classroom timetable. If you plan this carefully, giving different groups of children different pieces of information, you could combine all their work to make a large timetable to show the timings of all the events and display it in the classroom. …continued on the next slide

14. 3rd spread: The timetable of the London 2012 Olympic events continued… ● You could use the timetable as an opportunity to rehearse 24 clock hour time. They could convert these to 12 hour clock times and draw analogue clocks to show them. ● They could pick four or five events and work out for how long each takes place. If the class pick different events you could find out which are the longest and shortest ones and then place the others between them in the correct order. ● What do they notice about the opening ceremony? Why do they think it takes place two days after the games have already started? You could encourage them to find out why by asking this question in a search engine on the internet.

15. 4th spread: Some facts you might not know!! ● Use the pictures of the boxing gloves, basket balls and shuttlecocks to practice estimating and then counting as in slide one with the hockey sticks. ● Ask them which they think is the best way to count all the sports equipment: would it be by counting the three different items then totalling them? Is it best to count in ones? What other ways can they think of in which to count them? ● You could use the pictures to find totals, differences and carry out some simple grouping for example how many basket balls and shuttlecocks are there altogether? How many more basket balls are there than boxing gloves? How many boxers can be kitted out with a pair of boxing gloves? How many more gloves would be needed for 7, 8, 9, 10 boxers? ● Taking each fact one at a time, explore the mathematics possibilities within them. Here are some examples: ● Explore the number 510 – find ways to make it using the four operation and fractions, if it represents 100% what would other percentages of the number can they find, use the rules of divisibility to find out what the number can be divided by. ● You could repeat this for the 300 basketballs, 200 gate poles and the 432 pairs of boxing gloves (and find out how many gloves are need to make this number of pairs). ● You could do some exploration of height. How tall is 7’6’’ in metres and centimetres? How much taller is Yao Ming than the children in the class? This would involve the practical measuring of height using appropriate equipment. …continued on the next slide

16. 4th spread: Some facts you might not know!! continued… ● A volleyball weighs between 260g and 280g, how much is this in ounces? If each weighed 270g, how much would 10 weigh, 5, 20? This is good for practising these mental calculations: multiply by 5 by multiplying by 10 and halving, multiply by 20 by multiplying by 10 and doubling. ● Can the children find items around the classroom that weigh the same as a volleyball? This would be a good opportunity to practice estimating and measuring weight. ● You could repeat this for the table tennis balls, the boxing glove and the weights used in weightlifting. ● For the weightlifting fact, you could also explore the number 1 630 as well as the different possible weights. How do the children’s weights compare with the heaviest disc? ● You could ask the children to look up the Olympic Badminton medal chart on the internet and ask the children how many more medals China has won than all the other countries that entered this competition. ● How long ago was 1992? How many Olympic games have there been since then - include 1992 and 2012? ● You could take time to find out more about each of these sports e.g. the length of the canoe Slalom course, the record weight lifted by a weight lifter, the length of a boxing match without a knockout, how many games in a volleyball/basketball/table tennis match and the scoring system for each. • As mentioned in Issue 35, the possibilities for mathematics through the topic of The • Olympic Games London 2012 are endless. • We hope you will find these and the last issue’s slides helpful to get you started!