Pirates

I've had enquiries about the piratical lesson, so here's what we did.

We'd looked at probability trees the previous lesson, and whilst they hadn't seen them before, they were pretty happy with them, so I gave them this puzzle: You've been captured by the dreaded pirate captain. He wants you to walk the plank, but some of his crew think you might be useful and want you to join the ship. To test your intelligence, he sets you this puzzle. (Being a pirate, of course, you can never be certain of succeeding; you just have to give yourself the best chance possible.)

He gives you 4 gold coins and 4 silver coins, and 2 identical bags. You must put all the coins in the bags, then place the bags on the deck. The pirate captain will pick a bag at random and then pick a coin at random from it. If it's a gold coin, you get to stay. (adapted from the wonderful TES)

They really went for it, and it was a good application of what they'd learnt. Have a go! Mathematicians who saw the solution instantly: how do you explain how you know that's the best option? I struggled a bit on that.

Then they made a pi paper chain, and the great bit about that was I gave it to my earliest finishers on the pirate puzzle to organise. I gave them 2 copies of the first 200 digits of pi, 10 piles of strips of coloured paper and 5 staplers. It was an interesting organisational problem, of the sort that kids often don't get to try in school, and they loved it.

Best of all, after everyone had hunkered down for the pirate puzzle, I heard one kid say very quietly 'How come maths is the fun lesson this year?' It's not all about the fun, but if the learning is fun, they'll learn more and retain it better. His test scores show me he's learning, so I'm delighted he finds it fun.