Month: August 2012

Maths worksheet: the triple jump

The Triple Jump is a fascinating event, combining great athleticism with co-ordination. Originally known as the hop, step and jump it is an excellent activity to carry out with children using a standing start rather than a run up. The American, James Connolly was one of the early competitors, winning in Athens in 1896.

Triple jumpers take off on the ‘hop’ stage and land on the same foot. They then take one step onto the other foot before a final jump, landing with two feet into the sand. The rules concerning the landing are the same as for the long jump with the nearest mark to the board being the distance measured.

The distances jumped really are amazing and it is well worth marking out on a field exactly how far they jump. For example our greatest triple jumper, Jonathan Edwards holds the World Record with a jump of 18 metres and 29 centimetres.

The worksheet looks at some of the greatest ever winners of the Triple Jump as well as completing a graph showing the distances jumped and would be best suited to upper primary children and can be found in our Year 5 Handling Data section.

Triple jump men

More subtraction using the standard method

I have had several requests for another page of subtracting 2-digits from 3-digits, a worksheet that was published about a month ago. So here it is!

The benefit of the worksheet is that the questions keep to fairly small numbers but increase in difficulty and can show clearly whether children have fully grasped the standard method or whether they need more practice.

The last three questions aer especially tricky and if children are getting these correct it would suggest that they have really understood the concepts.

If these are set as homework make it very clear that all working out needs to be shown (e.g. hundreds crossed out and made one smaller and adjusting 10 tens etc). Of course I see no reason why children should not use a calculator to see if they are correct and if incorrect to try and work out where they have gone wrong.

Standard subtraction of 2-digits from 3-digits (2)

Resource of the Week: Weather chart

It’s lovely and sunny here and the Olympics are well under way, so what better than a weather chart to brighten the day even further!

This worksheet shows a weather graph of the average maximum and minimum temperatures for each month of the year for London and shows just why August is a pretty good month to hold a sports competition. It is typical of many found on weather sites on the internet, holiday brochures and newspapers. It is well worth reminding children that a graph should always have a clear title, and the axes labelled.

Some children have problems interpreting the scales on graphs when they don’t go up in single figures so it is important to point out what the temperature scale is. Most suited to year 5.

Weather chart (1)

Long jump maths worksheet

One of the great athletic competitions is the Men’s Long Jump. It has been a part of the athletics events since their beginnings. It demands a combination of speed, power and lift.

As with the Women’s Long Jump, the rules are strict; for example no part of the foot must land over the board and there is a special strip of plasticine to detect if this happens. In theory a gymnast could jump further by taking off with two feet and possibly doing a somersault, but both these actions are banned.

Great Britain has had some success in the Long Jump, with Lynn Davies from Wales winning in Tokyo in 1964. Perhaps the most famous Long Jump event occurred in 1968 where Bob Beamon smashed the World Record with a jump of 8.90 metres. Try marking that on a path outside and see just how far it is! His record lasted many years before Mike Powell broke it in 1991.

This worksheet looks at some of these famous long jumpers and the distances they achieved. There are some tricky subtraction of decimals to answer, plus a graph to create to show distances jumped.

Long jump men