Stately Holmes was here this week: Magical Maths

Stately Holmes was here this week, a great detective and mathematical mystery solver. Here’s what the children learned…

Stately Holmes is a distant relative of the great Sherlock, and has a reputation that’s really building(!!) He’s worked for some of the biggest crime solving organisations in the world; including the CIA and the FBI, but this week Stately was with us to teach the supercool youngsters a few of his crime solving skills.

Detective Training

Stately worked through the detective training booklet with the children…The first trick that Stately went through with the children was the infamous ‘Guess The Age’. This trick is NOT popular with teachers, parents, grandparents and in general anyone who doesn’t want young maths detectives discovering their age. But it IS very cool, so the children enjoyed it.

Also in the booklet were Stately’s Dice and Chocolate tricks. They’re equally cool. We’re sure that the children will show you the tricks, if you ask nicely.

The Mystery Calculator – Helps you to read minds!

The second activity our detective brought with him was ‘the Mystery Calculator’. This is genuinely really amazing.

It’s a sheet of numbers that’s helps you calculate what another person is thinking. The children were shown how to use it, and tried it on each other.

Fun with Games Galore

Our final activity this week was some really fun games. Great for practising important maths in groups. Please note, we change the difficulty of these games according to which year group is taking part – perfect for everyone!

The game we played this week was ‘More than or Less than’. It’s a guessing game that helps children develop their strategies for finding unknown numbers. They have to guess what number is displayed behind their head by guess-work and feedback of ‘more than’ or ‘less than’ from the rest of the class (some rounding was involved too). It was a game-a-rific game this week, with plenty of highs and lows. 🙂

Well what a great week this was. We really enjoyed it, and I know our world class detective was amazed by the younger detectives (I reckon they might even take Stately’s job if they carry on at this rate!!).

P.S. Next week is a PARTICULARLY magical week…we’ve got a visit from our very own Mathemagician.