October half term can be dreary weather and looking for something different to do as a family can be a challenge, but that is why we designed the Autumn Trail – a collection of games, puzzles and activities to encourage adults to work on their maths, but also promote positive numeracy experiences for their children. Having fun together using maths builds bonds and makes learning together fun.
Flexible and Engaging Activities
The activities can be done in any order and work on different numeracy topics and each participant is given a booklet to write down their answers.
The Corn Maze
A grid with questions and different answer route options. Participants need to solve the sums and choose the correct answer to navigate to another question and find the route round the maze.
Scarecrow Riddles
3 different maths riddles to solve.
Room Challenges
We include a couple of puzzles around the room, our most challenging of which is the Autumn Codes. Pictures have been used in substitution of numbers and a sheet of sums using these pictures is given. Participants must work out which number each picture represents to solve a final sum.
Spider Web Angles
Encourages use of a protractor to measure angle sizes and also adds a little creepy atmosphere to the puzzles.
Supporting Wildlife Through Maths
We tried to promote not only positive maths but also support for our environment and wildlife with information cards on different creatures. A series of activities revolved around British wildlife and nocturnal animals, from using graphs and pie charts as well as percentages to track the decreasing numbers of some animals.
Footprint Area Challenge
Using measurements in cm and mm to work out which animals left a track only visible under UV torches.
Bat Wingspan Challenge
Involves finding the information in a table and using arithmetic to find an answer which led to a secret code word found on a height chart.
Bird Feeder Pots
Making bird feeder pots using ratios and weights was also very popular and gave participants something to take home and put out in their own gardens to help support their garden birds as the weather got colder.
Practical Maths Challenges
Of course, we also had other practical activities.
Pumpkin Soup
Participants worked out a maths logic problem. There are four pots all capable of making a different number of soup portions and six pumpkins. They need to make enough portions for 3 different parties and work out how to divide the pumpkins between the pots to make the right amounts.
Mushroom Quoits
Each mushroom has a different number of spots and participants must work out which mushrooms they can use to answer a specific question, for example, their total must be a prime number. They then try to throw rope rings over the mushrooms.
Creative Maths with Craft
We always like to include a craft activity in our big workshops and this one used measurements and geometric shapes to make a bat. These cute characters are simple but take precision and encourage accuracy when measuring as well as making sure the right angles are there in the squares.
The Tree Stump Algebra Challenge
Finally, we have the Tree Stump Challenge. This introduces participants to algebra. The stump has five holes into which someone must place their hand and try to work out through touch what they think is inside. A list of potential items is provided with a number. Participants must work out a sum based on which item is inside and how many of that item. For example:
3a x number of item =
So, if zone A contains 2 pinecones and the pinecone is given a code of 12, participants must multiply 3 x 12 and multiply again by 2.
This was a lot of fun, especially for the children taking part, but adults too enjoyed the uncertainty of putting a hand inside to see what they could find. It was made even more entertaining by our use of fake slugs in one zone which made a lot of people laugh and scream.
The Autumn Trail was well received and a lot of fun with so many activities to take part in and a lot of different maths skills improved.
