TP-14.4

20 | www.teachwire.net 8 11 Geography bee Try an online geography bee. I’ve created one onYouTube at tinyurl.com/tpbee . There are five rounds, each around 20minutes long, and a free study pack. It will introduce children to locational knowledge, flags andmapping skills, then guide themto do independent research on elements of human and physical geography. 12 Kitchenmaths Baking and cooking are good things to be doing in their own right, but if youwant to introduce amathematical element, formalise it a bit so that themaths doesn’t get lost in the process. If you have the recipe for howmuch of each ingredient is needed tomake one cookie, howmuch of each ingredient will we need to make eight cookies? This can be an effectiveway to foreground children’s understanding of ratio. 9 Swap shop An effective way for children to develop an understanding of money, and of equivalence, is to set up a household ‘swap shop’. Children can find objects that they want to exchange and attribute a value to each item. If one child wants to swap a doll for a value of £3, what could he afford to swap it for from his sister’s shop? If pupils have access to technology, this is something that could be done with classmates. Ask each child to photograph their ‘shop’ with visible price labels. They can then ‘trade’ with classmates. This can all be make-believe – no contracts need exchanging! Platforms like Google Classroom are well equipped for this. Ball control Many of my students can often be heard shouting ‘Tekkers!’ as they dribble past an embarrassed opponent, or nutmeg them. Encourage children to use their time to practise close control techniques. If they have a garden, great. If not, there are still lots of skills that can be developed indoors without smashing the TV. Toe taps are a good one to practise for football. Can children do 60 in a minute? If children have access to a basketball hoop, or can make one, howmany shots can they make out of 50 each day? Encourage them to record the results in a table. This allows them to see their progress and practise calculating averages. Puppet show Shadow theatre originated thousands of years ago in China and Indonesia. As a formof ancient storytelling, it is worthy of study in its own right, as well as being a richway to develop children’s skills in design and performance. Children can create their own stories, props and characters fromscratch, or produce their own reimaginings of classic fairy and folk tales. This focusmeans less time is spent imagining characters, andmore on pupils’ own interpretation of their words and actions. 10 Try tessellation Thismosaic tile project is a fusion of geometry and art. Aswell as making something aesthetically pleasing, childrenwill be learning the relationship between area and regular/irregular shapes. Begin with a small (A6/A7) piece of rectangular card. Cut awavy-lined strip off one vertical side and stick it the opposite side. Repeat with the horizontal sides. This shape is a perfect tessellator. Experiment with this idea. Can childrenmake a tessellation tile in the shape of an animal, for example? 13