Implementing Rich Tasks in Mathematics - St Michael's Primary, Blacktown South

After our great PL day learning all about how to implement rich tasks in mathematics, our Year 5 team took the opportunity to put our ideas into action! During the PL day our team created lessons associated with the topic '3D objects in our World.' We created a slideshow that featured a range of buildings and landmarks from around the world. We then sent the slideshow to our students via Google Drive.
Our task for the students was to find a range of 3D objects in the pictures and identify them on their iPads. To do this, they took a screen shot of the various pictures and put them into Educreations or Explain Everything. They then identified the 3D objects in the picture by drawing around them.
To follow on from this, the students then transferred drawings of the 3D objects into their maths books. They labelled the properties and then throughout the week added to this by putting in the nets and different view points of the various objects.
During our reflection time, students showed their work to their peers and we used this time to discuss the 3D objects that students had identified. We explored the terminology associated with the topic, and did some explicit teaching around properties of the objects, for example clarifying that objects such as cylinders and spheres have curved and flat surfaces rather than faces.
To extend this task, students were also given the opportunity to explore the school environment and take pictures on their iPads of various buildings and equipment within the school. They identified the 3D objects in the pictures and then also worked on finding various angles within the pictures, which tied in with our next topic.
Feedback from the students was that they enjoyed the task and learning a little bit about different landmarks in the world, as well as finding the maths within the natural and built environment.