Maths Brain Blaster

Oakwood School hosted the Happy Puzzle Company's Brain Blaster program for Year 4 children in local schools. It was a two hour fun workshop that used audio-visual trickery, bizarre maths, 3D team challenges, blindfolded fishing and Big Ben's chimes to help children confront and overcome problems and challenges whilst operating effectively in teams.

Aims

The aim of the session was to promote the enjoyment and engagement with mathematics, reasoning and problem solving.

Background

Oakwood has used the Happy Puzzle Company several times over the recent years to run engaging workshops for the children at Oakwood. They had always been well received and enjoyed. We invited all the local primary schools to send a group of Year 4 children to take part to help grow their enjoyment and engagement with mathematics.

Resources

The Happy Puzzle Company used their own resources and presenter to run their program for a two hour session. Oakwood paid for the Happy Puzzle Company to run the event so that it would be free for the local schools and provided the facilities and lead teacher for it to take place. Two other Oakwood mathematics teachers also supported the event.

Impact

Feedback from the children and adults attending was very positive. The children worked well in their teams, persevering to complete the challenges.

Pupil Involvement

A mix of Year 4 boys and girls attended the event from all the schools. Three schools each brought 6 children.

Frequency

This was a standalone event but may be repeated in the future.