Thinking conceptually through Mathematics

For the past couple of weeks the Year 6 students have been engaged in days of “Inspirational Maths” with Stanford Researcher, Jo Boaler. Some of the investigations students have been grappling with include finding patterns in Pascal’s Triangle, 100’s chart and identifying how shapes grow (as in the example below).

 Please feel free to use the images above to initiate a dialogue with your child about patterns and how patterns grow.

These investigations are aligned to our mathematics outcomes for pattern & function :

Phase 3 Transferring meaning into symbols	Describe  the rule for a pattern in a variety of ways Represent rules for patterns using words, symbols and tables Identify a sequence of operations relating one set of numbers to another
Phase 3 Applying with understanding	Select appropriate methods for representing patterns using words or symbols Use number patterns to make predictions and solve problems Use the properties and relationships of the four operations to solve problems
Phase 4 Constructing Meaning	Understand that patterns can be generalized by a rule