Sketchbooks, Christmas boxes and maths….

by sharonkelly Posted on December 12, 2014

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Today’s session, was governed by reflecting on the fact that the children had told me that making the shoe was fun, but very hard because it was a tricky shape to work with and the fact that I had made the template and instructions and sent it to them.

So I thought if we worked with a more simple shape and handed the reins to the children to research, plan and design a box then it may seem a little bit easier. To help this process, I had posted a sketchbook for the children to record their explorations…….

The children took it upon themselves to find out all about a BOX! Mrs Crummy brought in lots of boxes and we invited the children to explore and take apart to see how they were made. There was a lot of discussion and we all learned a lot about boxes.

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The children discovered the box was one big shape that was folded up!

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With this information we now had a clearer idea of how to make a box… for our shoe!

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The children make drawings of the boxes then as flattened out shapes……  

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We decided to find out a little information about our shoe so the box would fit the shoe!

The children told me they needed to know how long, tall and wide the shoe was and that to do this they needed to MEASURE the shoe with either a TAPE MEASURE or a RULER.

They had lots of rulers in class so they set to work to find this information….

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These are the measurements that the children found….

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So that the shoe would fit comfortably into the box, we talked about extra room so the children decided to add on an extra 3cm to the measurements for the box.
  So that the shoe would fit comfortably into the box, we talked about extra room so the children decided to add on an extra 3cm to the measurements for the box.  

I was mighty relieved that the children and Mrs Crummy could help with maths and I was very impressed with the great thinking powers of the children!

All the dimensions were noted down in the sketchbook so we could record everything we did.
All the dimensions were noted down in the sketchbook so we could record everything we did.
After some deliberation we began to make a start on the actual box.. we folded the paper in half both ways so we could easily find a centre point.
After some deliberation we began to make a start on the actual box.. we folded the paper in half both ways so we could easily find a centre point.  

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Using the information about boxes from earlier we could work out how to fold the paper so that we could make the box! The children were delighted when they realised the box!

HOWEVER some moments before all this we had had a group discussion about whether it would be better to decorate the box BEFORE it was made or AFTER it was constructed. First of all almost half the children thought better one way and half the the other way… HOWEVER  once they had realised how the box was made and thought about the benefits of having a flat shape to work on, almost all of the children decided it was better to decorate the shape when it was flattened out. There were a lot of very good arguments in this debate! I was very impressed with the focus and patience of the children who worked so hard to find out everything today!

We closed our session saying that the boxes could be decorated and we could share the results next time!

Thank you Mrs Crummy, assistants and children!

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AND …………… Look Christmas came a little early for me… a new pair of running spikes… and a lovely black and white box!

 

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While on the subject of boxes and packaging… I showed the children this… they were surprised to see a CHRISTMAS TREE PARCELLED UP!
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