What makes maths interesting

Or how about something really exciting to stimulate the senses? During our teaching careers, we have both used these kinds of strategies — always with the best of intentions. In fact, one of us even had takeaway pizza delivered during a fractions lesson once. It sounds like a common-sense strategy: we really want our children to be happy, and to enjoy their learning.

Engagement has a very different etymological background; it is to do with making a pledge or entering into a type of contract. After all, engaged pupils are children who actively participate in the learning process. Listening to them explain their maths to someone else was like a little window into their minds — wonderful! After the sweets are used to teach the concept, the children are rewarded with the exciting prospect of eating their concrete apparatus.

It is important to understand that it is possible to be fairly cognitively passive while having fun. Getting children to wrestle with the taught content is the primary focus of this approach. Teacher-enthusiasm is an essential ingredient here because we need to show the children that the mathematical content is worth being excited about.

In engagement-led maths lessons, explanations are delivered with zeal and precision, and the work set is appropriately challenging but achievable. Pupils are likely to experience positive emotions in this type of lesson, but this is a by-product of having really learnt something and having been challenged. These are memories based on a particular time, place and context — for example, using sweets to learn ratios.

The issue is that episodic memories are very limited in how they can be applied to future learning. A semantic memory is a type of long-term memory involving the capacity to recall words, concepts or numbers. Most of the learning you have internalised throughout your life can be categorised in this way.

For example, your knowledge of times-tables would be based on semantic memories. This means that the knowledge acquired can be easily retrieved and more flexibly applied in future situations. As well as leading to a more favourable type of memory-formation, engagement-led lessons have other added benefits:. Our tutors also undergo a programme of rigorous training to ensure they can deliver and enhance our intervention lessons, to maximise their impact.

One consideration for using maths games is that it might be best to have a small handful at your disposal that you teach the children early on in the year, and that you can therefore play again throughout the year.

So often in games-based lessons, the resources become a massive distraction to the children, and behaviour slips. Dice clatter across tables and onto the floor, friends fall out with each other about equipment, or arguments erupt about who won the game. Teachers must help children who struggle with math lessons. Children should know that math is not abstract, but has a role in daily life.

Here are few practical tips:. Again fill the 5Lt bottle and pour 1 litre into 3 Lt bottle until it becomes full. Each person paid Rs. So, they paid Rs. The shop owner gave a discount of Rs.

Then, among Rs. Now, the effective amount paid by each person is Rs. Where has the other Rs. The logic is payments should be equal to receipts. We cannot add the amount paid by persons and the amount given to the beggar and compare it to Rs. Thus, payments are equal to receipts. Find the area of the red triangle. To solve this fun maths question, you need to understand how the area of a parallelogram works.

If you already know how the area of a parallelogram and the area of a triangle are related, then adding 79 and 10 and subsequently subtracting 72 and 8 to get 9 should make sense. How many feet are in a mile? What is 1. A man is climbing up a mountain which is inclined.

He has to travel km to reach the top of the mountain. Every day He climbs up 2 km forward in the day time. Exhausted, he then takes rest there at night time.

At night, while he is asleep, he slips down 1 km backwards because the mountain is inclined. Then how many days does it take him to reach the mountain top? Look at this series: 36, 34, 30, 28, 24, … What number should come next? Look at this series: 22, 21, 23, 22, 24, 23, … What number should come next? Look at this series: 53, 53, 40, 40, 27, 27, … What number should come next? The ultimate goals of mathematics instruction are students understanding the material presented, applying the skills, and recalling the concepts in the future.

There's little benefit in students recalling a formula or procedure to prepare for an assessment tomorrow only to forget the core concept by next week. Teachers must focus on making sure that the students understand the material and not just memorize the procedures. After you learn the answers to a fun maths question, you begin to ask yourself how you could have missed something so easy.

The truth is, most trick questions are designed to trick your mind, which is why the answers to fun maths questions are logical and easy. Cuemath, a student-friendly mathematics and coding platform, conducts regular Online Live Classes for academics and skill-development, and their Mental Math App, on both iOS and Android , is a one-stop solution for kids to develop multiple skills. Understand the Cuemath Fee structure and sign up for a free trial.

Table of Contents 1. I am an expert in math because I struggled and fought with it. I chose to make math my future, because I would always have a job as a math teacher. What I got is so much more. With math, I can budget and see a clear path to becoming wealthy.

I can make music. I can shoot a basketball with success. I struggle all the time with math. I reign it in. I tame it. I make it mine, for my use in everything. Math is the future. Have you ever believed you could do anything? What you go through is what you believe you can do. If I can balance 3 feet off the ground, then I can balance 1 or even 2 feet off the ground. Heck, I might even try to balance 4 or 5 feet off the ground just to see if I could go beyond my limit.

Now take that example of balancing to make the assumption, if I can balance 5 feet off the ground, then by logic, I can jump from a 5 foot ledge without injury if I land right. If I can jump from a 5 foot ledge and still be okay, then maybe I can learn to skateboard and balance. And if I can skateboard, then maybe I can snowboard. So, because you can balance 3 feet off the ground, you can snowboard. If you can solve a system of equations word problem, then in logic, you can recognize that word problem as a real-world issue.

Perhaps there are easier real world problems in life you can solve that are less complex than that math problem.