Four 4s!

23/02/17
Today we were learning to apply what we already know in maths to solve problems.The activity was called Four 4's. This was a chance to apply the order of operations skills we have been learning and also to give children a chance to write out an expression to represent a problem when they already have an answer.It was so much fun!The aim was to use the number 4, 4 times only (exactly 4 times) with different operations to knock out the numbers 0-20. The children worked in pairs, threes or on their own. We had a variety of different expressions from simple to complex.This is what some of the children came up with:

(4x4)-4/4 = 15
(4+4) x √4 +4 = 20
4+4-(-4)-4 = 8
4+4+4+4 = 16 (this was the expression they all came up with!)
4/4 x 4 - 4=0

We learned that the value of 4 could change if we used some maths language (symbols) such as:  4/4 (four quarters has a value of 1); √4 has a value of 2; 4² has a value of 16; 4! (4 factorial) has a value of 24. Sometimes maths is tricky and we have to learn in different ways...the children love to be mixed ability grouping and be given a challenge. We will try this next week to see if we can try and rearrange the operations to show even more BEDMAS skills. We might be ready for fraction bars...let's see how it goes!