Over the past week, the children have been working on algebra. This is one of the areas in maths that children often have most fear about as letters in calculations seem strange, but they have risen to the challenge!
At first, thinking about function machines and sequences helped the children to understand rules and how to generate numbers. Once they had revised this, we introduced the dreaded ‘x’ into maths. By thinking of the algebra like a missing number calculation, the children were soon able to realise that it was no different to work they had done previously. They have then been able to solve various algebraic problems that previously would have seemed complex – and for many of us that we wouldn’t have been able to tackle until we were in secondary school!
