Le Tour provides lots of primary maths starting points, it is a fantastic spectacle and most children relate to cycling. There is the added bonus that this year it starts in Yorkshire as well as a Stage from Cambridge to London. It would make a great backdrop for a working wall in your classroom.
The official website www.letour.com has some good information displayed in easy to read charts and great graphics for the elevation of each stage route.
Le Tour working wall
Create a large simple map of the route and add information as each day of the tour unfolds.
Although the official website has a good map for Le Tour route it is very sensitive to enlarging or reducing. For an easy map to copy try a static version on www.ride.co.za - France is a bit elongated ....but otherwise good.
There is an easy to read chart with dates and lengths of each stage. It is below the map.
• Add in the length of each stage on cut out flags
• Add in the names of the jersey winners for each day on cut out shirts in yelllow, green, white with red spots and white
• Add the dates
• Add the highest point for each stage on simple cut out mountains.
There are great graphics that show the gradients of the hills and mountains for each day. These Stage Profiles are quite hard to find on the website, but here's how.....
Main page --> menu select THE RACE ---> drop down menu select Route -- > scroll under the map to the chart and select the Details 'arrow' under the video and above the map is a new menu, select Stage Profile.
The other menu headings on this page will give a whole new set of data on each stage with time schedules and the more technical information on sprints and climb grades. Useful perhaps for some of your Y6 pupils.
Create a large simple map of the route and add information as each day of the tour unfolds.
Although the official website has a good map for Le Tour route it is very sensitive to enlarging or reducing. For an easy map to copy try a static version on www.ride.co.za - France is a bit elongated ....but otherwise good.
There is an easy to read chart with dates and lengths of each stage. It is below the map.
• Add in the length of each stage on cut out flags
• Add in the names of the jersey winners for each day on cut out shirts in yelllow, green, white with red spots and white
• Add the dates
• Add the highest point for each stage on simple cut out mountains.
There are great graphics that show the gradients of the hills and mountains for each day. These Stage Profiles are quite hard to find on the website, but here's how.....
Main page --> menu select THE RACE ---> drop down menu select Route -- > scroll under the map to the chart and select the Details 'arrow' under the video and above the map is a new menu, select Stage Profile.
The other menu headings on this page will give a whole new set of data on each stage with time schedules and the more technical information on sprints and climb grades. Useful perhaps for some of your Y6 pupils.
A school I worked in this week were lucky enough to have a top-of-the-range training bike in their Y6 classroom. It logged distances cycled and the children were using it to try to ride the complete distance of the Tour De France before the end of term. Each child took turns to have a 5 minutes ride so it was in continuous use and they were certainly making good progress.
The details of how the shirts are awarded are quite technical, but here is a simplified version for children:
YELLOW: the overall leader of the race so far. The person wearing this shirt at the end of the race in Paris is regarded as the winner of the whole race.
Extra detail : to find the overall leader, each day the total amount of time taken to finish that stage is added to the total time taken in all the previous stages so far. The leader at the end of each stage wears the Yellow shirt the next day.
GREEN: the sprinter’s shirt is the rider with most sprint points. The amount if sprint points awarded depends on the course, a flat course produces more points than a mountain course.
Extra detail: Some stages have mini-sprint sections that are worth points too.
WHITE with RED DOTS: the King of the Mountain’s shirt is for the rider who is best at climbing steep hills overall.
Extra detail: Mountains are graded according to gradient and length with different numbers of points awarded based on the grade. The points from each day are added to the total points of each rider so far.
WHITE: fastest overall rider under 25 years old.
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Working walls and learning journeys
Linking a working wall to a learning journey
How one teacher linked a working wall to a learning journey
Learning journey - make it a poster
Cycling
Last year I rasied money for Childnet cycling a 100-mile sportive
Cycling the Prudential Ride London-Surrey 100
KS2 3,2,1,Go! Cycling timing challenge:
http://sport.maths.org/content/3-2-1-go-cycling-timing-challenge-ks2
Now you have the information - time to do some maths!
Rounding, ordering and calculation
• Make a chart with the lengths of all 21 stages listed, round each number to
- the nearest whole number - the nearest ten
• Write the lengths of the 5 longest stages and the 5 shortest stages.
• How far have the riders cycled after the 10th stage?
• How much further will the riders cycle on Day 2 than Day 1?
• What is the difference in length between the longest and shortest stage?
A challenge for older children: • What is the mean average distance over the 21 stages?
Decide before you set the task how many decimal places you wish the answer to be written in. The total distance is 3664 km, divided by 21 gives .......174.476190476191
Using this answer • How many stages are longer than the mean average?
Time and Calendars
Calendars
Use a grid template for the month of July (calendars are often cheap now, so buy a large wall calendar) and complete your own Le Tour calendar.
• Write on the start and finish dates (starts 5th July, ends 27th July).
• Which days of the week does the Tour start and finish?
• Write these start places on the correct day on your calendar: York, Arras, Mulhouse, Grenoble.
• Where will the race begin two weeks after the start date in Leeds?
• Throughout, ask where were/are the riders yesterday, tomorrow, 2 days ago, last week, in 10 days time.....?
• Where will the riders be on 19th July?- What day of the week is this? What are the dates of every Monday in July?- What do you notice about the pattern? - is this the same for other days of the week throughout the month?
Time - using 24-hour
The website has start and finish times using the 24-hour clock, they are on the same menu as the Stage Profiles, here's how to find them, again:
Main page --> menu select THE RACE ---> drop down menu select Route -- > scroll under the map to the chart and select the Details 'arrow' under the video and above the map is a new menu, select Stage Profile.
• Stage 1 starts at 1200 in Leeds and the first riders are expected to finish 256 minutes later.
• What time are they expected to finish?
• Compare this time to the actual time of the first rider on the day.
• What are the start and finish times for Ypres?
• How long is it expected to take the riders to complete this stage?
• Draw hands on two clocks for each of the 21 stages showing the start time and finish time.
• Write the time under each clock using a.m. and p.m.
• Calculate the length of time of each daily race.
• Compare the predicted time and actual finish times for each day.
KS1
Convert the times to 12-hour times and ask children to draw hands on blank clocks to show the start time for each day.
