News

Just before Christmas, Damian Howison had what he called a small ephiphany and dropped us a line to share it. The result is a startling addition to the Cameo of Task 101, Pyramid Puzzle, and two student reports added to the Recording & Publishing page along with links to how they were assessed on our Assessment page.

It seems that the design of the pieces from which any size triangle-based pyramid (tetrahedron) can be constructed are governed by the gifts given over the 12 days of Christmas. In the Christian calendar Epiphany comes after Christmas, but in this case we are more than happy to let Damian have his a little early. See From the Classroom in the cameo listed in the Link List below and all will be revealed.

Sicherman Dice were brought to our attention by Matthew Reames, St. Edmunds School, UK. In the past Matthew's class has also contributed to the Eric The Sheep cameo. Soon after Matthew enlightened us, Sicherman Dice was added to the task collection as Task 241. Now its whole class investigation life is played out in full in the latest Maths300 lesson, Sicherman Numbers, which involves, probability, statistics and number work and is suitable for Years 4 - 12.

We have all rolled to cube dice, added the results and drawn up a frequency table to show the most likely result. The challenge in this lesson is to design two new cube dice which will produce the same frequency table. If your school is not a member, discover Maths300 through the Link List below.

On behalf of Education Services Australia, Charles Lovitt or Birsin Reynolds will be presenting the full day workshop titled:

at several venues across the country through 2013. Bookings are open now for sessions in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia between March and May. See Link List below to make your bookings. ESA have also produced a short video capturing teacher enthusiasm for these workshops. It can be viewed on line through the link in the Link List below and features participants in a recent workshop led by Charles.

Look further down the ESA page and you'll find several sessions on Stimulating Mathematical Thinking presented by Derek Holton, whose deep understanding of the working mathematically process helped us form our Working Mathematically reference page (see Link List below).

Ina Koetsier, our Distribution Manager, has realised that this special discount on a great resource might have been missed by many of you when it was announced just before the end of the school year. So she has extended the offer until Easter. Points of View contains 10 tasks related to the topic of representing 3D objects in two dimensions, a manual and software built on the task Building Views. Eight of these tasks do not appear in any Maths With Attitude kit, so this kit is a complementary resource for schools using Maths With Attitude, or a stand alone kit in its own right. Originally designed for Years 5 - 8 it has also proved to be an extremely valuable learning resource in VCAL and other non-academic senior classes. Content includes nets, front/side/top views, isometric drawing and more in practical hands-on settings encouraging the development and application of spatial perception. The kit is constructed around a Mixed Media Model (see Link List below) and the manual provides: comments from trial teachers and students, notes for whole class investigations, information about each task, a suite of investigation guides suitable for a wide range of abilities, assessment guidance.

Listed at $275 on our Order Form (see Link List below) the final few of these kits have been discounted 40% to... only $165 Change our Order Form or use your purchase order.