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For younger learners

  • Early Years Foundation Stage

Peg Rotation

Age 7 to 11
Challenge Level Yellow starYellow starYellow star
  • Problem
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Here we have a kind of peg board. The holes go all the way through so the pegs may be seen from the top or underneath.

sq1

You'll see the 4 blue pegs.
Now the peg board is either:
  • flipped over - north to south, OR east to west, OR north-east to south-west, OR north-west to south-east;
  • or it is rotated clockwise or anticlockwise.

Can you find out which movements could produce the four next views?
 
sq3sq4
sq5sq2

You could make some of your own and get your friends to see if they can find how you've moved it to make your next picture.
Try now to put 4 pegs in so that when you do a move with the board it still looks the same.

Now I've made a triangular board to do the same things.
Here's the starting view:
 
Tri1

How has it been moved to show these views?
Tri2
Tri3

Hope you've had fun exploring these.
Can you think up ways of changing what I've done so that you can explore further?

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Construct-o-straws

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

Matchsticks

Reasoning about the number of matches needed to build squares that share their sides.

Little Boxes

How many different cuboids can you make when you use four CDs or DVDs? How about using five, then six?

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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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