Getting Excited with Poly Plug Activities

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Sue Davis at G.A.T.E.Ways

G.A.T.E.Ways is an independent organisation offering challenging and enriching activities and experiences to develop and extend highly able children. Sue Davis designed a course titled Problem Solving Polypluggers made up of four 2.5 hour sessions, and was blown away by the kids' responses. Here is what she wrote after her first course with Year 1 & 2 children:
WEEK 1
Exhausted, Yes! Exhilarated, Yes!

I have just returned from teaching a bright bunch of GATEWays children in a 2 ½ hour workshop using Poly Plugs. I began asking the children, "What do Mathematician's do?". One of their responses was that Mathematicians work out the hardest problems of all.

I wrote a problem up on the board and asked them to read it and have a go. Some of the children looked a little perplexed and stated that they had read it but did not understand what it meant. I explained that this happened to Mathematicians too, but they had a strategy to help them. This lead naturally to the first Problem Solving Strategy: Read to understand the problem. They recorded this in their books.

Taking their Poly Plugs out of the bags, we then reread and understood what the problem was and so the children progressed enthusiastically into creating the numerals 0 to 9 on the Poly Plugs and recording them on Poly Plug paper. (See the activity Making Digits.) They were bubbling when they recognised that these were the numerals they saw on their digital clocks and calculators.

After the break, we began exploring examples of symmetry found in nature and in the classroom. I asked them to create symmetrical patterns on their Poly Plugs feeling that when they understood this we would move onto rotational symmetry. (See the activities Exploring Symmetry and Rotation Challenges.) Before I had the chance, the children were bringing symmetrical patterns to me and exhibited such astonishment that when they rotated their Poly Plugs, their patterns remained symmetrical. Who was leading who in this investigation!!

We then moved onto a challenge using the task Row Points. I asked the children to turn over 13 plugs on the yellow/blue board. Writing the problem on the board, the children were encouraged to use the first Problem Solving Strategy. We clarified the scoring of the task and a few rules. I also wrote the challenges on the board that included:

One lad scored his design and despondently advised that he scored zero. It was great to see his transformation when I congratulated him. I asked him which of the challenges he had solved. The children buzzed between their tables and the board as they created new designs and improved their scores. We ended the workshop on such a high!

I have come home to rewrite next week's session as the excitement and enthusiasm just has to be allowed to continue with the obvious opportunities to go deeper into the investigation. Just how many designs are there which can score zero??