Year Two Inquiry Resources
Select a strand from the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics, below.
number and algebra
Playing with Dough: What is the best recipe for playdough?
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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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Bunches of Balloons: What is the best number of balloons to evenly decorate the room?
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Students explore and present groupings of 29 balloons. The class decides which grouping is best and the room is decorated. Arrays, the commutative property of multiplication, repeated addition and skip counting are encountered. There are opportunities for diagnostic interactions. This unit could be placed before any formal introduction to division and multiplication as it explores the concept of dividing a number into equal parts and grouping into equal sets.
The guided mathematical inquiry unit, Bunches of balloons: What is the best number of balloons to evenly decorate the room?, and the description above, can be found at the reSolve: Maths by Inquiry website.
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What's for Lunch? How many [sandwiches] does our class eat at school in a year?
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Collaboratively, groups of students devise plans for finding out the total number of sandwiches (or other items) eaten. The sequence of four lessons provides opportunities for students to invent, implement and refine strategies for repeated addition with larger numbers.
The guided mathematical inquiry unit, What's for lunch? How many [sandwiches] does our class eat at school in a year?, 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?
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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?
statistics and probability
Playing with Dough: What is the best recipe for playdough?
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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’.
|
What's for Lunch? How many [sandwiches] does our class eat at school in a year?
|
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Collaboratively, groups of students devise plans for finding out the total number of sandwiches (or other items) eaten. The sequence of four lessons provides opportunities for students to invent, implement and refine strategies for repeated addition with larger numbers.
The guided mathematical inquiry unit, What's for lunch? How many [sandwiches] does our class eat at school in a year?, 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 1 (Ages 6-8) |
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Available to members:
- Favourite books: Does our class have a favourite type of book? In this unit, students decide what attributes (characteristics) they think a ‘typical’ favourite book might have.
- Ramp it up: What is the best ramp design for a toy car? In this unit, students build car ramps and test toy cars in order to develop conceptual understanding of aspects of measurement, geometry and data.
- Feet, fabulous feet: How big are Year One feet? This unit uses a common context, foot size, to explore aspects of measurement and shape.
- Scissors, paper, rock: Who is the best scissors, paper, rock player in our class? In this unit students participate in a class scissors, paper, rock tournament to determine the best player in the class. On the way, they explore extended number patterns and the language of probability in a fun and practical context.
