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For younger learners

  • Early Years Foundation Stage

Making Maths: Stars

Age 7 to 11
Challenge Level Yellow star

Have a go at drawing these stars and experiment with colouring them in different ways. The trick to making them really look good is to use a sharp pencil and draw VERY light lines until you're ready to draw in the final lines to finish the star.

There are two examples given below. Both start with the same six points around a circle, but the lines you draw in are different. Try designing some stars of your own.

You will need:


  • a pair of compasses
  • sharp pencil
  • ruler
  • paper

What to do:

1. Start by drawing a circle. It can be any size, but a good size for your first try is about a $5$cm radius.

2. Keep the compass set on the radius ($5$cm) and mark off that length all around the circle. This marks the six points of the star.

Compasses

3. Now start drawing (very lightly) lines you need to make the basic star shape.

4. Carefully trace (more darkly) over the parts of the lines needed to finish the star.

A star like this one is found on the flag of Israel. Perhaps you can create it too?

Star of David


Or you could try this more complex star:

More complicated star of David
 


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Tangrams

Can you make five differently sized squares from the interactive tangram pieces?

Polydron

This activity investigates how you might make squares and pentominoes from Polydron.

Construct-o-straws

Make a cube out of straws and have a go at this practical challenge.

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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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