Here in Scotland, we still have about 6 weeks left of the school year. It will be a bit longer in the rest of the UK, while many schools in the States have either finished for the year, or have only a few weeks left (I'm jealous!). 

We are doing a bit of data handling at the moment in maths. My class is finding that a bit more engaging, which we need, now that warmer weather and sunny days appear to have arrived (I hope I haven't jinxed us by writing that...). 

Throughout the year, our class has been raising awareness of reading in our school as part of the First Minister's Reading Challenge, and one of our goals has been to raise money to add books to all of the ​

class libraries. It's much easier to have productive 'Personal Reading' time in classes if there is a wider range of books in each class to choose from.

So, using the theme of adding books to class libraries, I created a Data Handling project for my class. As I have a P4/5 composite this year, I've made 2 differentiated versions of it. The P4 version (available if you click on the picture above) works with numbers to 1000 (although most of the sums are within 200, and larger addition and subtraction problems generally use round numbers). 

The P5 version (available if you click on the picture below) works with numbers to 15,000 (and I've modified the project so the class is finding out how many books schools are adding to their school libraries, since the numbers are much bigger). 

Both versions are primarily addition and subtraction based, although some multiplication and place value knowledge is reviewed as well. They both also come with Answer Keys, for ease of marking. 

In using this with my class, I've printed it off as a booklet, which has worked well. The project file is done in colour, but you can easily print it off in black and white - that's what I do. 

I hope this saves a few people some time and keeps your class entertained as we count down to summer!

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I wanted to start getting up a few resources (for those of you already planning ahead for next year). These maths tasks cards are set at three different levels. The 'e' (easy) level is addition within 10, mostly adding on 1, 2 or 3 more (the only exception is double 4). The mid-level challenge is also addition, but kids will be asked to bridge 10. The 'c' (challenging) level is mixed addition and subtraction, with kids bridging 20 in the addition problems.

There are 10 word problems in each set. With my kids, I used them during maths rotations when their group was with me. This was our first try with written word problems, so we took turns picking a card, reading it and solving it together on white boards. Something about cards and getting to choose a 'mystery' one makes problem solving more fun! I've tried to keep the words relatively simple to read, and there are pictures to help with trickier words like caterpillar and watermelon.

These cards can be used in a variety of different ways, though. With kids who are confident readers and used to problem solving, I'd post the task cards around the room. Then I'd give each kid a clipboard and recording sheet (or just their maths journal) and have them find the problems and solve them (something about walking around the room makes problem solving more fun as well). These would also make great 'fast finisher' cards, or they could be used for 'math journaling' - where pupils are asked to take one card and solve it in their maths journals, showing both the abstract equation and a picture representation of the problem (so if they were adding 4 caterpillars and 3 bees to find out how many bugs, they would draw the correct number of caterpillars and bees, along with writing the mathematical equation 4 + 3 = 7). When we worked on these together in our maths groups, I put out some fun buggy counters to help the kids who are still needing lots of concrete practice in their problem solving.

I'd love to hear how you use (or plan to use) these cards in your own classroom!