One of my favourite websites is NRICH – and they are building up some interesting Olympic maths teaching ideas. I saw some of the NRICH ideas on angles being used at Manor Leas school, Lincoln – the photo shows a display of a ‘Learning Journey’ working wall for angles.
NRICH’s Olympic Logic Medals Count is a good activity and can be made even better by turning it into a ‘mystery’. Print each of the 7 clues on separate cards and give a set of cards to small groups to work on together. Fencing Tournament can be turned into a mystery in the same way.
I know some schools are setting up a mini-Olympics event for the children, for example using beanbags for the throwing events and changing the school sports day into an Olympic event with opening ceremony, medals etc. Fantastic!
Linked to this, NRICH has a simple starting point for measuring involving the discus and hammer. It’s fun to mark out the actual distance of these Olympic records – it’s a long way to throw anything!
There are so many more sports related resources from NRICH, look at the Stage as some are for KS3 & KS4.
I’m enjoying going into schools and seeing the planning for the Olympics taking shape, with many schools devoting the rest of the term to an Olympics theme. Sounds great – do let me know of any particular successes.
Related Articles:
Maths ideas for sports day and the Commonwealth Games
Maths activities based around the running track.
Plan your olympic maths activities
Start with the data or start with a maths problem and change the context.
A little sporting Logic for the Olympics
There are six clue cards in the mahs mystery, to find the sport for each player
