This is a very simple investigation using sticks lying around. It works particularly well with twigs or sticks which can be easily broken or snapped to size.
The challenge is to create the numerals from 1-9 with sticks. Now that is a nice challenge in the early years which can be made harder by seeing if it is possible to make number 1 with just 1 stick, number 2 with 2 sticks, number 3 with 3 sticks. This does take a bit of lateral thinking and sometime a quest for a curved stick or two.
A similar challenge for older children who are learning about acute and obtuse angles is to make each numeral have the same number of acute, obtuse or right angles. The photos below illustrate this.
The sticks have been put on an old sheet so that it is easier to see them. I know this activity will lead to a lot of discussion about accuracy of the angles. It may be worth having a few protractors just so that children can measure any angles which cause a debate – and pieces of scrap paper and pencils for working things out. Also please ignore the colour of the angle markers in the photos. You will see they are not all accurate or it’s debatable if they are…!
It is also a good time to discuss why the work undertaken demonstrates approximate representations of any given angle – outside, using found sticks, there is always going to be a margin of error.
This blog post was originally published in November 2012.
