Year Three Inquiry Resources
Select a strand from the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics, below.
NUMBER AND ALGEBRA
Playing with Dough: What is the best recipe for playdough?
Students use measurement and the procedural genre (recipes), and are introduced informally to scientific testing when they follow a recipe to make playdough, then determine their own criteria by which to rank the playdough to determine the ‘best’.
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Biased Bingo: What bingo card would give me the best chance of winning?
Bottle Flipping: What fraction of a bottle needs to be filled with water to be the best bottle for flipping?
Bottle flipping is a popular game. Students decide what unit fraction of a bottle to fill with water to improve its chances of flipping easily. They work in pairs to devise a way to collect and record data, organise the data into categories and create displays to support their findings. Their displays may include lists, tables, picture graphs and/or simple column graphs, created with and without the use of digital technologies.
The guided mathematical inquiry unit, Bottle flipping: What fraction of a bottle needs to be filled with water to be the best bottle for flipping?, and the description above, can be found at the reSolve: Maths by Inquiry website.
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MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY
Playing with Dough: What is the best recipe for playdough?
Students use measurement and the procedural genre (recipes), and are introduced informally to scientific testing when they follow a recipe to make playdough, then determine their own criteria by which to rank the playdough to determine the ‘best’.
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Linked up: What is the longest paper chain that can be made from A4 paper?
Which way from here? Can others follow my route?
Bottle Flipping: What fraction of a bottle needs to be filled with water to be the best bottle for flipping?
Bottle flipping is a popular game. Students decide what unit fraction of a bottle to fill with water to improve its chances of flipping easily. They work in pairs to devise a way to collect and record data, organise the data into categories and create displays to support their findings. Their displays may include lists, tables, picture graphs and/or simple column graphs, created with and without the use of digital technologies.
The guided mathematical inquiry unit, Bottle flipping: What fraction of a bottle needs to be filled with water to be the best bottle for flipping?, and the description above, can be found at the reSolve: Maths by Inquiry website.
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STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY
Playing with Dough: What is the best recipe for playdough?
Students use measurement and the procedural genre (recipes), and are introduced informally to scientific testing when they follow a recipe to make playdough, then determine their own criteria by which to rank the playdough to determine the ‘best’.
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Biased Bingo: What bingo card would give me the best chance of winning?
Bottle Flipping: What fraction of a bottle needs to be filled with water to be the best bottle for flipping?
Bottle flipping is a popular game. Students decide what unit fraction of a bottle to fill with water to improve its chances of flipping easily. They work in pairs to devise a way to collect and record data, organise the data into categories and create displays to support their findings. Their displays may include lists, tables, picture graphs and/or simple column graphs, created with and without the use of digital technologies.
The guided mathematical inquiry unit, Bottle flipping: What fraction of a bottle needs to be filled with water to be the best bottle for flipping?, and the description above, can be found at the reSolve: Maths by Inquiry website.
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You may also be interested in other inquiries from the Thinking through Mathematics series, Book 2 (Ages 8-10)The following titles are available on the Free Resources page:
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Little boxes: What is the most suitable way to package four small boxes?
In the context of a request from a health foods manufacturer, students are challenged to develop the 'best' design for packaging four small snack boxes.
In the context of a request from a health foods manufacturer, students are challenged to develop the 'best' design for packaging four small snack boxes.
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- Round Robin: Who is the best handball player in our class? In this unit, students plan and run a class handball tournament to decide the best player in the class. They use the data they generate to improve subsequent tournament designs.
- Shower timers: How accurate are shower timers? In this unit, students assess shower timers to determine their accuracy and reliability.
- Class party: Is it possible to provide a class party for $5 per head? Many opportunities arise throughout the year to hold a class party. This unit enables students to use fractional understandings and concepts to plan a class party within an assigned budget.
- Peach Ponderings: Which brand of tinned peaches are the best? The focus of this unit is on learning to recognise and pose questions that can be investigated. Students examine categories of questions that are closed, non-investigative and investigative. They learn three strategies for writing investigative questions using comparisons, preferences and ambiguous words. Students should have some experience with mathematical inquiry before starting this unit.