Maths Minion!

Like lots of infant teachers, I have always had a class bear or two. The first way that I used them was to teach children about the world. The Bears went travelling, we plotted their travels using Google maps and the children shared photos and wrote journals (see the blog sidebar and one of the pages of their travels). Lily went to Australia, Old Trafford, Las Vegas and the Yosemite National Park, to name a few, all in one year! 

When I started at East Harling the class bears were used to promote free writing. By the middle of the second year I changed the expectation to reading the bears a story, because the quality of writing in the books differed greatly and I didn't want judgments being made. My children were asked to read a story to the bears and record what they (the bears) thought of it. 

This year I have one bear that will be a travelling bear and a very new Maths Minion to try. As a school maths is a focus area so I thought that one way to support this would be to put together a rucksack with Stuart, who needs to learn some maths as he finds it tricky. The back pack came with a handy pencil case, folder and notebook. I will add a laminated sheet with some activity ideas, which will include lots of games, mental maths skills and ideas to use and apply mathematical in daily life. I have also linked the Maths Wizards blog I made  couple of years ago (for a child with SEN) to our Class Blog as I know that many children enjoy using technology to play games. Hopefully this puts less pressure on busy parents.

I'm relying on the novelty factor of Minions to entice the children to take Stuart home with them.  The important thing is that it will be their choice what they do. We shall see how it works! 

Minion Me! My lovely class Minions!