Stones, Numbers and a Pyramid of Possibilities!!!

🏗️ Building a Pyramid: The Mystery of the Stones!

How do you build a pyramid? Where do you start, and how many stones will you need? Our Year 3-B mathematicians are beginning to find out!

As part of our inquiry, “How can we use mathematics to become great builders?”, we started our first Maths Booster challenge by stepping back in time to Ancient Egypt.

Our young builders began constructing their own pyramids, thinking about how stones could be arranged and how measuring helps us build carefully and accurately.

But then came a little mystery!

One Egyptian builder had collected 12 stones. Another worker arrived and brought 8 more. How many stones did they have altogether? Were there different ways to work it out? Could we organise the stones, draw a model or use a number sentence to explain our thinking?

The children explored the challenge, shared their strategies and discovered different ways to make 20. We encouraged them not just to find the answer, but to explain how they knew.

And this is only the beginning! Our builders will soon face bigger challenges as more stones arrive at the building site. Will they be able to keep track of them? How will they calculate larger amounts? What mathematical strategies will help them build their pyramids?

The building site is open, and the mathematical challenges are getting bigger! 🔺🧱

— By Miss Chaitali Bhagat