1. Opening circle (10 min)
Big circle: How do you feel now, what happened to you during the last week?
2. Geometric forms (5 min)
Participants walk around. When the facilitator shouts a number (3, 4, 5, etc.) that number of participants must hold hands to form a tringle, rectangle, etc.
3. Maths tale (15 min)
Participants work in groups. The facilitator reads the tale and stops in the story while the participants work out the solutions.
Once upon a time there was a Number who set out to wander in the world and find out who he is. He was walking in a dense, dark forest where the wicked witch lived.
“I’m going to eat you, Number, if you cannot answer my question”, croaked the wicked witch. “Tell me how many frogs I have in my cauldron if the sum of their heads and legs is 85!”
Poor little Number was shaking in fear, but fortunately somebody whispered the right solution to him from behind a bush (17). The wicked witch let him go and told him that one of the neighbours of the solution is his multiple. This helped him a little closer to find out who he was, but there were still a lot of numbers he could have been. (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9).
So the Number went on wandering and met the kind fairy. “Why are you wandering in this dense, dark forest, little Number?”, asked the fairy. “I want to know who I am. Can you help me?”, asked the Number. “I cannot tell you who you are, you have to find it out yourself. I can only tell you that you might feel lonely because you are an even number.”
“I see!”, thought the Number. “That help a little, because it means I can only be one of four numbers (2,4,6,8). But I still don’t know exactly which number I am.”
So he had to keep wandering. He left the dense, dark forest behind and reached the desert. Suddenly, some thieves attacked him.
“We are the thieves from the story of Ali Baba. He managed to overcome us, even thought we are ten times as many as you are. But we will not hurt you, because you are so little compared to us.”, they said.
Unfortunately, the Number did not know the story of Ali Baba, so he still did not know who he was. Help him find out! Finish the story in groups!
4. Cubist animals (20 min) – printed images (see Annex), scissors, glue, scale paper
Participants work in groups. They cut out the images from paper and create the geometric bodies. They can copy the images to the scale paper to make them smaller or bigger. Their task is to build an animal.
5. Bingo with mental arithmetic (5 min) – printed bingo tables
The facilitator tells the participants easy arithmetic exercises. Each exercise is told only once. The participants look for the solution in the bingo table. If they find three solutions in a row (vertical, horizontal or diagonal), they win.
Exercises: 3×3, 27-5, 19+7, 9×5, 7×7, 32-9, 12+23, 12:4, 25-12, 45:9, 11×8, 4×7
6. Closing circle (5 min)
What are you taking away from this workshop? What was the best/ most difficult?
ANNEX
