Primary Maths Games

In the land of shadows, I am a giant. As I was cycling home through Richmond Park last night, with the sun low in the sky, my shadow was stupidly long. Estimating it (got to encourage that) I would say around 4 meters – more than twice the size I am. Reckon I should measure some individual aspects of my anatomy that way. Of course, it wasn’t just me, the shadow antlers on the deer were really very scary.

 

Got me thinking, I need some games to put on my maths table (which is currently just a virtual maths table). I want to have snakes and ladders (made from a number square with a spinner with lots of tens on), battleships (except I wont be allowed to call it battle ships, it will have to be something much more PC, I’ve used rhubarb and custard in the past, you’ve got to put custard on your pieces of rhubarb, helps if the children like rhubarb). It would be great if children could measures shadows as the light comes from different elevations. Never going to happen of course,haven’t got a whiteboard yet (weekend trip to IKEA coming up) let alone a light for the maths table. And as for measuring parts of your anatomy, actually, that’s not at all a bad idea (though possibly a different part then I as referring to), topic is about ourselves so got a link there.

 

Unfortunately, my shadow wasn’t just twice as long, but was also twice as wide as it used to be. Not sure I can blame that on the angle of the sun. Wonder if IKEA also sell those trick mirrors, might be my only hope. Be great to get one for the classroom as well, not sure it would add anything to the maths table but be a great way to make myself popular with the mums. Will have them lining up to hear readers, but would have to re-design the classroom around it, they’d only hear children read if they sat in the exact spot to get maximum effect from the mirror. And even then they’d have to fight for, thats where I’ll be standing.

 

A balanced plate

Everyone must have taught a lesson about a balanced plate (nutritionally balanced that is, although you probably get a bit more VAK if you try and spin the plates on a stick at the same time). We emphasise the need to include the various food groups, but I sometimes wonder if our lessons are as balanced as they could be. Should we also discuss the dangers of a balanced plate (again, I’m talking nutritionally balanced here, the H&S implications of a china plate balanced on a long stick are obvious).

As regular readers of this Blog will know – yes, both of you – I follow what I would describe as a vegan diet. If you ask the Vegan Diet police they would disagree. I eat honey, and this thoughtless, nay callous, disregard for the plight of the humble honey bee is apparently not consistent with the badge of “Vegan”. Risking the full wrath of said police, I will continue to refer to myself as such.

Presenting what I had for dinner last night is great way of engaging the children and opening up their minds towards different diets. It is lovely to see the expressions on their faces when I point out the seaweed in my stew. I take a huge measure of encouragement as they demonstrate the value of cross-curricula learning by leveraging on their drama lessons, and simulate vomiting.

The dangers of a balanced plate. As a vegan there are certain foods that I need to eat – chick peas, *marmite, Brazil nuts, seaweed, and something else that stops the brain deteriorating, but escapes me now. Lack of these in my diet would present a serious threat to health over the long term. However, there are also short-term risks.

At the weekend I was on a beach with my family. We had a great day out, swimming and paddling, building sandcastles, generally being very unimaginative and enormously enjoying ourselves. Time to go home, you need to dry yourself and the sand gets everywhere. You have no choice but to brush it off, including where the sun don’t shine. Learning is most effective from meaningful personal experience, and I really learnt that day why, when they were looking for something abrasive, it was sand they chose to stick on paper.

A balanced diet. I am vegan, I need to eat protein (beans), and I like curry. I eat a lot of vegan bean curries. The health implications when you are rubbing sand from your derriere are obvious, painful, and very real. Children need to be informed.

One of the real advances in modern school practice is that we now look a little more outward, we consider society as a whole, be this in PSHE or more generally. When considering a balanced plate, and especially the vegan bean curry, children do need to think about the social implications. Again, from first hand experience of getting the train back, this does affect more than oneself. On the up-side, I did get a seat (in fact nearly a whole compartment) to myself.

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How do you see yourself, as a teacher?

Theory of multiple intelligences. Everyone who has done any teacher training will know something about this, at least, if you also paid attention to the “How to remember stuff” lectures as well. Sometimes you read about theories and wonder how they apply to you. I struggle thinking of myself as having multiple intelligences, it all sounds a bit grandiose, maybe multiple abilities might be more on the mark. I am about to get my first full-time teaching role, and have had a career in IT, so I reckon I could go for multiple abilities.

And once you’ve thought about that, and had a can of cider, you start thinking about how else you might categorise yourself. There are some obvious things that it is easy to put labels on, such as following a vegan diet. Then there are the more ethereal things. I like to think of myself, and have others think of me, as a generally nice bloke (terrible adjective, students would never get away with it). I use the work Bloke advisedly. Sometimes, being a male primary school teacher, totally out-numbered by female colleagues and parents, I feel the need to re-inforce my masculinity, one way is using nouns such as Bloke. But that is a topic worthy of its own discourse.

Of course, I am none of these things alone, I am all of them at the same time. I am Categorised As Vegan Eater, Multiple Abilities, Nice Bloke. Yep, I am CAVEMAN-B.

The obvious question that arises is, am I an improvement in caveman-A. That is, if you can differentiate me.

Again, no easy answers. Take dating. Caveman-A:- Club, bang on head, drag to cave, done. Me, stick of asparagus, can of cider, acute fear of talking to anyone female. I get the distinct impression if Caveman-B had come before Caveman-A, the human race would never have got to the second step.

Then, art, those magnificent drawings on cave walls, far exceed my ability (definitely one of the multiple intelligences I missed out on). Of course, we don’t really know anything about the individuals that left them. My personal theory? It was a display of work by Year 1s in the corridor of Big Cave Primary, that someone forgot to take down for the summer.

Things to do before term starts

1. Get fat
OK, it’s not a policy decision or anything, but it has definitely happened. The MOMC (Mother of my children) first noticed it. It was always going to be someone thin that did, and she’s getting thinner. I’m not complaining, she looks pretty cute (Ed – I know she reads this, gratuitous sucking up).

It’s the butterfly effect. The idea that if a butterfly flaps its wings it can cause a hurricane in the Caribbean, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, small causes having unexpected effects. Don’t tell me this blog isn’t educational. It comes from Chaos theory. Something I will be leaning heavily on.

The cause / effect in my case works like this
1. Know I’m stopping my current job very soon
2. Not worry about getting to work early, or even on time
3. Turn off the alarm
4. Wake up too late to cycle, and have to take the train instead. Thereby no longer burning the 1000 calories a day this takes.
5. Get fat

This is exacerbated by the fact that, as I’m no longer cycling, I can have a beer at work. A graph of the calories metabolised against cider drunk looks something like this.
 
A pint of cider is about 202 calories. Again, educational.

2. Get thin
I’m teaching year ones – five and six year olds. Having spent some time with them it quickly became apparent that light coloured clothes were not going to work, dark clothes are that little bit better at hiding pen marks / paint splashes / snot. So, off I went to the sales and bought several pairs of black Chinos at fifteen quid a pop – bargain. However, and it seemed logical at the time, I bought them in size that fitted me. I did not take into account 1 above, so I’ve got a few weeks of crash dieting in front of me.

3. Hmmmmmm…..
I’ll get back to you on 3.

Mini-beasts

So, 4 weeks left to start of term, I’ve got nothing sorted. Classroom is totally unprepared, I haven’t got a laptop, and I’ve got no idea what I should be teaching. I’ve read of things called Medium Term plans, but only in fairy tales. However, help is at hand, and from a totally unexpected source. Realising that we will probably be doing something on mini-beasts my family has rallied round, well, the cat has. She has very helpfully infested the entire house with fleas. It is pretty obvious that this is situation I need to get under control. I can see the first time I meet the new parents, that moment of instant judgement. “Mr Hill, those spots look nasty, is it contagious?”. “No, not at all, but don’t get too close, fleas can jump a long way. I’m a teacher, I know this sort of thing.” “Fleas!?”. “Indeed, insects of the order Siphonaptera”.

Fleas can jump up to 13 inches, apparently. I know you are meant to cite sources, but wikipedia is sooooo unreliable.

 

So, whilst I meant to be thinking about planning for next term, I have been busily spraying any chemicals I could find around the house. I couldn’t get napalm, not even on the internet (really, I thought you could get anything on the internet), so have had to resort to the flea powder at the local hardware shop. I say flea powder, its not clear to me if it is meant to get rid of the fleas, or feed them. It does say on the tin that a second treatment may be required, is that because they might get hungry after a few days? Of course, just getting rid of them from the house is not sufficient, you need to get rid of them from said cat as well. Thought I’d do that with a flea collar. Again, not clear to me if a flea collar is something you put on you cat to get rid of fleas, or just provide a suitable place on the cat for all the fleas to hold parties.

 

On top of treating the house and the cat, you’ve also got to treat them AT THE SAME TIME. Otherwise, Duh!, they just do that whole jumping thing and you’re back to where you start. So, last night, again, I donned the NBC suit and performed the chemical equivalent of a scorched earth policy (or should that be scorched flea?) on the living room. I went for the nastiest most eco-unfriendly stuff I could find, and it was with mixed emotions I noticed a strange looking smoke coming from where I applied it to what used to be the sofa. The tin said to use it sparingly, I guess they would make a bigger bottle if they intend it to cover more than one room. Having done that, I ran into the kitchen to escape the acrid smoke and pounced on the cat. Having pinned it to the floor I unloaded a can of (animal-friendly) flea spray on her. Even if that stuff is just food for fleas, they would have drowned by now.

 

Hoovering. The sitting room now needs hoovering. It looks like I have another night in my non-stop party life ahead of me.

 

Categories: NQT, Teaching