Maths, UOI, inquiry that just keeps on giving

You know you've stumbled across a great inquiry when the learning just starts to develop a life of it's own. Our planter boxes just keep getting better. Accuracy of measurement, comparing informal with formal notation, converting between inches and centimetres, length, width, height, volume, capacity and the list continues to grow.

After drafting then building their paper models, determining the volume in cm3 the students were ready to order the wood. All those who were building with wood that is, some have chosen to use clay. My visit to the hardware, in very broken German, managed to have all of the students requests fulfilled - five pieces of wood per box, three different sizes for each box. Quite a language lesson!

All this was planned and anticipated, fantastic discussions, motivation levels extremely high.

What I hadn't planned for were the discussions which have begun today as the students compare weight to dimensions. Each group knows clearly how much soil they want - in cm3 the problem is that soil is sold by the litre. How many litres of soil do you require to fill your 8750cm3 box? This discussion will lead nicely from the clay kids as they need to determine how much clay they need just to make the pot - sold by the kilo.

Collaboration, problem solving, collegiality, inquiring minds ... connecting maths to our unit of inquiry: the form and material of an object affects its use. Connecting oral procedural texts as students now begin to produce shared videos (diary room style) of the learning process ...

Thank you to my colleagues as we talked through bringing measurement into our real world. Thank you to those who shared their thinking with the group and helped transform the beginning of an idea into a rich and rewarding inquiry based learning experience.