Articles

This is the collection of all articles currently written for the Young Minds Big Maths site. Open the filter menu below to filter to articles matching (all of) the selected topics.

Four angles forming a circle on a grid. The angles are of sizes 45, 180, 45 and 90 degrees (read anticlockwise).

Types of Angles

An angle is a measure of the difference in the direction of two lines. They can be seen all around us, and understanding them can help us do many different t...

angles
An angle of 2 pi radians shown on a grid.

Pi

Pi (\(\pi\)) is an irrational number that is very important in maths, especially in the maths of circles.

circles
angles
Six polygons with an increasing number of sides arranged in two rows. The top left polygon is a triangle and the bottom right polygon is an octagon.

Angles in Shapes

In shapes, we can see lots of different angles. How can we compare these angles? Here we will think about interior angles in polygons. Polygons are 2D shapes...

angles
Concentric circles on a grid.

Concentric Circles

Concentric circles are all around us, in things we make, like tin cans and in nature, inside trees. They are a type of parallel curve, you can learn more abo...

circles
concentric circles
A diagram showing the process for finding the centre of a circle.

Circles

Circles are a shape that is of particular interest to nursery school children, recurring in many discussions. The roundness of circles makes them ideal for u...

circles
An object accelerating under gravity.

Gravity

“Why do things fall?” is a common question we all have when growing up. The short answer, gravity. Gravity is the force that acts on an object, pulling it to...

gravity
A diagram of how air interacts with a paper ball and a sheet of paper.

Experiments with Air Resistance

In our article on gravity, we discussed how all objects have the same acceleration due to gravity. Some objects fall slower than others when dropped, due to ...

air resistance
The line $$y = -\frac{3}{5}x + 1$$.

Properties of Straight Lines

There are straight lines all around us, but how can we describe them mathematically? This is an important question if we want to compare the lines that we se...

lines
Two perpendicular lines.

Perpendicular Lines

Two lines are perpendicular to each other if they meet at a right angle (\(90\) degrees). We can see examples of perpendicular lines everywhere, where walls ...

lines
Two parallel straight lines.

Parallel Lines and Curves

We can see parallel lines all around us, on radiators, railway tracks and pieces of paper. What properties do lines need to have to be parallel?

lines
A diagram showing how a bouncy ball loses height on each bounce.

Conservation of Energy

Conservation of energy is a key idea in physics, and we can explore this using common items.

energy
Three images of playdough on a set of scales. In the first image, there is a ball of playdough weighing 100g. In the second image, there are two balls of playdough, together weighing 100g. In the third image, there are four balls of playdough, together weighing 100g.

Experiments with Playdough

One common playtime toy is playdough, which allows children to experiment with many mathematical concepts.

playdough
A line graph of the heights of a sunflower over time.

Types of Data

Collecting data in the classroom can be a great way for children to learn about the things around them and statistics at the same time. There are two main ty...

data
An image coloured with four colours.

The Four Colour Theorem

One popular classroom activity is colouring, and an interesting mathematical property is the four colour theorem. If we have at least four colours, we can fi...

colouring
Exploring the Fibonacci numbers with pompoms to show how addition of the previous two numbers is used to get the current number.

The Fibonacci Numbers

One fascinating thing about nature is the occurrence of the Fibonacci numbers. The Fibonacci numbers are a sequence of numbers starting \(0,1,1,2,3,5,8,...\).

Fibonacci
A stem and leaf plot.

Data Collection

Classroom experiments can not only be a fun way for children to learn about the world around them, but also a great opportunity to develop data collection te...

data
An approximation of the Golden spiral.

Spirals

An interesting shape that occurs in nature is the spiral. Children can find spirals all around them, on the shells of snails, in flowers and animal horns. Th...

spirals
Two diagrams of pentagons on ramps, the ramp on the right is steeper. Vertical dotted lines show that the centre of mass of the pentagon on the steeper slope will fall outside of the base.

Centre of Mass

A common playtime activity is stacking blocks. Most of the time, children want to build the tallest towers, which leads them to question how to make their to...

building
A histogram for the heights of the children in the data.

Types of Graphs

Once children become excited by an idea, they often want to test and compare it, which can involve collecting some data. An example is measuring the distance...

graphs
The Tyne Bridge.

Triangles in Construction

A popular activity in nurseries is building structures. Many interesting questions can arise when children experiment with building specifically, why are tri...

triangles
A paper model of corrugated cardboard.

Corrugated Cardboard

Corrugated cardboard is often accessible to many children, and one common question is, Why is it so strong? This can spark an interesting conversation about ...

triangles
All six possible permutations of three objects.

Permutations

Many children are interested in ordering objects by size or some other property; this can lead to a discussion about permutations. A permutation is a reorder...

permutations
A child making representations of houses with 2D shaped tiles

Shapes in 2D

One of the children used different shaped tiles to build a house. For example, they used a square-shaped tile as the main part of the house and a triangular-...

shapes
tiles
triangles
circles
2d
A peacock butterfly, with the line of symmetry shown

Symmetry

The word symmetry stems from Greek, meaning (very roughly) ‘having the same measure’ or ‘being in agreement’. Put simply, symmetry is concerned with whether ...

symmetry
A child cutting playdough

Equivalent shapes

Play dough is another activity that can engage children with mathematics, mainly when it comes to making and creating shapes.

shapes
equivalence
playdough
Several children building a ramp from wooden blocks and planks. Again, the angles are marked.

Angles in ramps

Many of the children built ramps with objects like planks of wood or sheets of carboard. The angle between the ramp/board/plank and the floor changes as the ...

ramps
angles
triangles
A child making different sized balls from playdough

Making equal shapes in playdough

Playdough is another activity that can engage children with mathematics, mainly when it comes to making and creating shapes.

shapes
volume
playdough
equivalence
same
A selection of blocks used for printing repeating patterns on fabric

Patterns in 2 dimensions

Patterns which are made up and used as fabric or wallpaper are also made up of repeating “chunks”. As with our 1D patterns, we could recreate them using a si...

patterns
sequences
wallpaper
2d
symmetry
A child continuing a repeating pattern using fingerprint paint

Repeating patterns

One day at a participating nursery, some of the children were finger-painting pictures of worms. Whilst this activity is simple and fun, there is an underlyi...

patterns
sequences
paint
caterpillars
A child showing a pattern they had made from Numicon pieces

Numicon

Numicons is a new approach to teaching maths to early years that can help children see the connection between numbers. These are flat plastic tiles that repr...

numbers
shapes
multiples
patterns
numicon
Two children filling a water bottle through a funnel at an outdoor tap

Water and funnels

At one of the nurseries there was an outdoor tap, where the children could fill up whatever they wanted to with water. One of the children enjoyed filling up...

volume
shapes
funnels
water
A child standing next to two egg boxes, each with some plastic egg shells sitting in the holes

Eggs and spaces

One of the children was interested in the open eggs that sit in the egg cartons. They were easily able to tell their teacher the different colours of the egg...

shapes
circles
A child lining up cartons of milk

Counting milk

One of the children enjoyed counting the amount of milk cartons needed for the group. This activity was understandably difficult for this child as they had t...

numbers
counting
addition
subtraction
A child stacking differently sized cogs onto a threaded pole, almost in size order.

Stacking cogs

One of the games that the children can play is stacking a set of cogs on top of one another. These cogs are different shapes, colours and sizes which means t...

shapes
sizes
Children using various objects (sticks, their bodies, their fingers and rulers) to form angles

Angles

When two lines meet each other, they form an angle.

angles
Using ratios to keep a mudcake consistent

Ratios in ‘cake’ making

Some of the children enjoy making their own “cakes” and following recipe cards when doing so. They discovered that the consistency of these cakes can be chan...

ratio
numbers
baking
A child making different sized balls from playdough and arranging them in size order

Shapes and volume

As one group activity, some of the children spent their time making lots of different sized balls out of dough. This then allowed them to spend the time expl...

shapes
volume
playdough
A sofa, measured in units of cushions and books

Rulers

Some of the children were experimenting with different ways of measuring the lengths of objects, using different units. Naturally, many children and adults w...

rulers
A rock falling into water, creating a splash

Rocks in water

Many of the children enjoyed dropping rocks into the river water and watching the splashes. After a few goes of dropping the rocks, we are able to identify a...

rocks
water
splashes
relationships
models
Three ramps made from drainpipe. One is lined with sequinned fabric and another with bubblewrap.

Ramps and their surfaces

Some of the children wanted to make ramps that had different surfaces, which changed how the object went down the ramps.

ramps
surface
friction
An ice cube placed in a vessel of warm water

Melting ice

Some of the children were experimenting with warm water and ice cubes. The time it took for the ice to melt depended on the ways they tried to melt the ice w...

surface area
Children laying on the floor, drawing spirals and sets of concentric circles on a large piece of paper

Concentric circles and spirals

A group of the children were sat together, drawing spirals and concentric circles, after discussing the idea of concentric circles and how they were “circles...

concentric circles
spirals
drawing
equivalence
A photo showing nursery children looking at a cauliflower

Fractals

A group of the children were analysing cauliflower and noticed that the smaller parts of the cauliflower that we are able to remove from it, are much like th...

fractals
patterns in nature
patterns