Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities

Each lesson starts with a conceptual warm up using concepts about numbers or using images like the one above. 

What shapes do you see here? 

How many of each shape? 

What relationships do you notice? 

Across the school students are now working on measurement; mass, volume, capacity. There are common big ideas that are explored at each level. These are key principles related to measurement including that there are a range of attributes that we can measure including length, mass, time, area, angle, and volume. When we measure,we use comparison, specifically, we compare like properties to see which is greater. We can make comparisons using standard or non-standard units of measure and we use mathematical language to describe these.

The following problem is a Level Three (Year 5/6) one related to volume. Ta’ase is sending a parcel to her family overseas. She needs a box with a volume of 10 000 cm3.

Find the volume of the boxes to see if they are big enough.