Recently I was working in a local primary school exploring multiplication outside. We finished with an investigation using sticks (SK), stones (ST) and cones (CO).
Multiplication, like most things in maths is all about looking for patterns and relationships. Once we are able to make connections then we can start to play with the concepts within the rules we have created.
In this activity, our challenge is to make faces, each one must be different. We must make a pair of eyes (E), a nose (N) and a mouth (M). How many different combinations are possible and how can this be expressed?
The photos don’t show all the combinations. I think there are 27 possible faces. Can you find them all?
As it was a Y3/P4 class, I suggested that 9 different faces would be good to create in the first instance. However this was a real challenge and upon reflection, this is probably better aimed at older children yet it felt inclusive as all the class could join in making faces.
- What happens if we added ears to the faces? How many combinations would now be possible?
- What about if we added eyebrows? The class were very keen to do this.
