Motivating through Competition...

This week I introduced a new activity shared by our maths facilitator Marie Hirst, into our maths warm ups. Maths Scrabble, a game designed to help learners recall maths vocabulary. The challenge to get the highest score completely won my class over. 

What I liked about this activity was the amount of maths vocabulary that was recalled that wasn't linked to a current focus. One group worked out quickly that words like 'exponent', 'equation' and equivalent' gave higher word scores. I added a component that required the spelling to be accurate so allowed 2 minutes to use the maths dictionary to check the spelling. This was a great way to remind my learners that this site gave great explanations of vocabulary. The image below shows one group waiting to see the final score to see who won. Standing back and watching I saw a wide variety of strategies being used to tally up numbers. The conversation and engagement in the photo below was really exciting to watch. I noticed the students who had already added up their word lists watching and doing quick additions to see if they were going to hold onto their positions. This is a fantastic way to bring maths vocabulary alive!