So often in Maths we teach children how to do something and then find contexts to apply it. This is the "this-is-how-you-do-it, now-do-some more" approach to Maths.

The Maths Investigations photocopiable activities turn all that on its head by suggesting that you give children big questions to investigate that take them beyond their current experience and then give them carefully structured support as they discover key concepts and relationships for themselves.

This approach is much more fun than simply learning rules and practising them, and encourages pupils to have a more questioning attitude and explore the Why? behind what they are being taught.

Your context can be a cross-curricular one, or a mathematical one.

For example, Shadow Clocks explores what happens as the sun moves round during the day.

In the course of this investigation you cover

• using measuring equipment correctly and measuring accurately
• understanding and minimising sources of error
• recording of measurements using diagrams
• symmetry
• compass points

Browse full list of photocopiable investigations

Sometimes children just need to learn stuff!

There are a number of key areas of Maths which are forever dear to parents' and teachers' hearts.   The multiplication tables, addition & subtraction, learning to tell the time, money & measurement all require considerable effort before children have fully mastered them. 

The Maths Investigations games have been developed through many years of experience in the classroom, to target the key issues.

Some, like Wake Up Chum, are interactive, to be played by the teacher (or a parent) with an individual pupil, a group or with the whole class. Others, like the Counting Caterpillar, are designed to be introduced to pupils as a whole class and then played by individual pupils, both in school and at home, at their own level. 

Several of the games are are designed so that you can have the whole class working on the same game, but with activities fully differentiated for different pupils needs. 

Help sheets are provided for parents for many of the games, so that you can send the games home with a realistic hope that they will be played correctly!

Browse List of Photocopiable Games