Ancient Egyptians activities from National Museums Scotland:

• solve and create number problems using hieroglyphs
• build a boat and explore how many stones it can carry
• solve word problems, record answers using hieroglyphs

These activities link to history or social topics. They are an ideal opportunity to explore the impact of mathematics in the past.

First level learning includes:

• number and number processes
• shape, position and movement
• maths impact on the past

Learners become entrepreneurs in this interdisciplinary project. Learners decide on a product to sell and calculate profit margins. 

Through collaboration, marketing, and digital creativity, they create video pitches and apply mathematics to make informed business

Setting up the business 

Working in small groups, learners: 

• choose or design a product to sell
• decide on a business name and brand identity
• assign roles within the team - Finance Manager, Product Designer, Marketing Lead, Sales Analyst 

Costing and pricing 

Each group is given a virtual start-up budget to:

• calculate production and marketing costs
• decide on a selling price
• predict the number of sales required to make a profit
• calculate expected profit margins

Creating a marketing campaign 

Groups create a 60-second promotional video:

• write a persuasive script
• film and edit their video

The marketplace 

Groups present their videos to the class. Each learner receives an agreed number of virtual tokens to ‘spend’ on products. They should:

• watch each pitch
• decide how to spend their tokens
• record purchasing decisions

The business debrief 

Groups should then:

• calculate their total income from sales, expenditure, profit, and loss
• compare predicted and actual outcomes
• create a group presentation to summarise the business journey
• share their presentation as part of a business debrief session 

Learners should consider:

1. Which products were most successful?  
2. What factors influenced purchasing decisions?  
3. Did pricing affect sales?  
4. Did the marketing campaigns influence buyers?  
5. How did mathematics support decision-making? 

Support and challenge 

To support learners:

• adapt or assign specific group roles
• provide costs and templates for learners to work from
• encourage the use of calculators and spreadsheets for efficient calculations

To provide additional challenge set product design criteria. For example:

• must be a toy
• must be for target audience
• cannot exceed a maximum price

Adapt the budget, financial scenarios, and calculation expectations accordingly. 

Explore promotional discounts and ask their impact on profit. 

Learners become landscape architects, using area, perimeter, and spatial planning skills to design a garden that meets specific criteria.

Second level learning includes:

• measurement
• angles, symmetry and transformation

Planning your garden

Provide design criteria such as "design a 100 m² garden that includes:

• a lawn covering half of the total area
• a 12 m² patio
• two identical flower beds
• additional features such as a vegetable patch, bird bath, wildlife area or play space"

Ask learners to:

• draw scale plans using squared paper
• calculate area and perimeter
• explore multiple design solutions
• use colour coding or a key to represent different features
• justify design decisions
• present and compare their designs
• consider how garden spaces can support people and wildlife

Support and challenge

To support learners you could:

• provide a partially completed garden plan
• give learners a limited number of design elements
• provide area and perimeter grids

For additional challenge you could:

• ask learners to create more than one solution
• add further design criteria, such as a wildlife area or vegetable garden
• ask learners to calculate the cost of turf, paving, or planting

Learners become event planners, organising a Maths Week Scotland celebration within a budget.

A party for Finn

Plan a party for Finn Finity and his 5 friends to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Maths Week Scotland.

Decide what food, games and prizes need to be bought.  Learners have a £60 budget. To create your party plan they can:

• compare prices from different shops or websites
• explore value-for-money offers and discounts
• justify their spending decisions
• present their event plan to others

This activity could culminate in a real class celebration, with learners applying their plans in practice.

Discussion questions

1. Did we stay within budget?
2. Which spending decisions offered the best value?
3. What was essential and what was optional?
4. How did our budget affect our choices?
5. What would we change if we had more or less money?
6. How does mathematics help event planners organise successful events?

Support and challenge

To support learners you could:

• provide a list of items and prices
• work in a group with assigned roles
• adapt the budget, attendees, or party requirements
• provide a partially completed party timetable

To provide additional challenge:

• introduce special offers, multi-buys and discounts
• add additional constraints, such as dietary requirements

Moo Maths Packs for first and second levels supports data literacy and the practical applications of maths in everyday life.

Learners investigate real-life maths through dairy farming activities exploring numbers, measurement, and problem solving.

Packs includes links to relevant experiences and outcomes.

Local partners

Are there any farmers in the local community who could come in to share more about maths on the farm?

Learners become interior designers, using measurement, scale drawings and budgeting skills to create Finn Finity's dream bedroom. Second level learning includes:

• number and number processes
• angles, symmetry and transformation
• money
• measure

Finn's bedroom

With a budget of £1500 design a dream bedroom that is 5m x 4m. Encourage learners to:

• create a scale drawing of Finn’s bedroom
• select furniture and furnishings that fit the space
• work within a fixed budget
• record expenditure and calculate remaining balances
• justify design choices and present their final design

Support and challenge

To support learners you can:

• adapt the dimensions, budget, or design criteria
• provide a pre-drawn room layout
• provide a list of furniture items with prices rounded to whole pounds

Challenge learners to:

• calculate the area covered by furniture, rugs, or flooring
• work with percentage discounts or sales
• introduce additional design criteria, such as storage requirements

Discover how mathematics helps track pollution and support environmental action.

 Source to Sea litter survey

The Marine Conservation Society's the Source to Sea litter survey enables learners to take part in a national citizen science project by collecting data about litter in their local environment.

First level learning includes data and analysis.

Learners can:

• make predictions about the types of litter they expect to find
• collect and record data using ticks or tally marks
• organise findings in tables, pictograms, or bar graphs
• compare results from various locations or groups
• analyse data and identify patterns or trends
• create and answer questions using the information collected

Upload the findings to contribute to the wider Source to Sea project.

Discussion questions

1. Which type of litter was most/least common?
2. Were our predictions accurate?
3. Where might this litter have come from?
4. How could our community reduce the amount of litter found?
5. What could we do to reduce the number of single use items we use?
6. How could we promote reducing, reusing, and recycling within our school community?

Support and challenge

To support learners:

• provide a simplified recording sheet
• adapt the number of litter categories being recorded
• provide templates for tables, pictograms, or bar charts
• use discussion prompts to support data interpretation

To provide additional challenge:

• compare data collected from separate locations, days, or seasons
• calculate totals and differences between categories
• present findings using digital tools
• consider actions that could reduce litter and use survey evidence to justify recommendations

Traffic survey

Learners investigate traffic near their school by making predictions, planning, and carrying out a survey, presenting findings, and analysing results to explore how data helps us understand the world.

First level learning includes data and analysis.

Collect the data

Decide how best to collect your data. Include:

1. Where and when will you conduct your survey and for how long?
2. How many times will the survey be conducted?
3. How to collect the data, for example a tally chart or table?
4. Which categories of traffic should be included, for example, car, van, tractor bus?
5. What type of display would be best, for example a pictogram, a bar chart, a frequency table?
6. What digital tools could support the create of the data display?

Carry out the traffic audit of a street near the school then learners can decide how best to present their data.

Analyse the information gathered

Ask learners to consider:

1. What do you notice about the results?
2. What do you wonder?
3. What was the most / least common?
4. Were our predictions correct?
5. Are there safety considerations for our school?
6. What other data could we collect?

Learners could present their results to the wider school community such as at an assembly, to the Junior Road Safety Officers or to the local traffic police officer or councillor.

Support and challenge

To support learners:

• provide templates for data collection and display
• adjust the number of traffic categories being observed
• adapt the scale being used on pictographs and bar charts

To provide additional challenge compare and analyse results from data collected over different days or times.

Explore Maths Through Stories and STEM through stories for a wide variety of experiences linked to both maths and literacy.

Early, first and second level learning includes:

• numbers and number processes
• information handling
• shape, position and movement
• cross-curricular literacy

Provide learners with open-ended follow-up questions to offer opportunities to explore the maths within the stories further.

Maths Tales competition

Learners can write their own mathematical stories and enter them into the Maths Tales Competition.

Stories can be written as part of Maths Week activities in class.

Beekeeping

FIT Counts invites learners to become citizen scientists, spending ten minutes observing and counting pollinators visiting flowers. Through data collection and analysis, they discover how mathematics supports biodiversity monitoring and conservation.

FIT Counts is a national citizen science project run through the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS).

Learners spend 10 minutes observing a selected flowering plant and recording the number and type of pollinating insects that visit. Their findings contribute to a wider project monitoring pollinator populations and biodiversity across the UK.

A FIT Count can be carried out during daylight hours from April to September, if the weather is dry and warm:

• If sky is clear (less than half cloud) the minimum temperature for a count is 13°C
• If sky is cloudy (half cloud or more) the minimum temperature for a count is 15°C

Your location can be anywhere where there are flowers to attract pollinating insects. An urban garden or park is suitable, or in more rural areas it could be on farmland, on a nature reserve – anywhere where suitable flowers are growing, where you have permission to be, and where it is safe to go.

Learners can gather, display, and analyse the range of data in different ways. Second level learning includes:

• data and analysis 
• measurement 

Minibeast safari

Watch the Roman Numerals video from Smile and Learn.

Learners can then work in small groups to:

• write a Roman numerals quiz for others to solve
• play Roman numeral Bing or Snap
• look for clocks with Roman numerals and tell the time or set questions related to time using Roman numerals
• match number cards and sort them into categories such as numbers less than 10

First level learning includes:

• mathematics and its impact on the world - past, present and future
• number and number processes

Expand for second level

The Roman numerals worksheet from the University of Cambridge has a focus on converting numbers.

Apply maths through hands-on challenges.

Remember to follow health and safety guidance in your setting, including risk assessments when required.

STEM activities for any classroom

Primary STEM activities cover a variety of first level numeracy and mathematics outcomes. Encourage learners to record and analyse findings.

Context planners

STEM context planners include:

• numbers and number processes

• measurement

• information handling

• shape, position and movement

Things that move

Provide a selection of vehicles, balls, wheels, rods, guttering, tubes, ramps etc and allow children to explore movement.

Magnets tinker table

Allow children to explore Which metals and materials are magnetic. Encourage them to:

• sort
• classify
• record results
• compare quantities

Den building

Go outdoors and provide den building items such as:

• tarpaulins
• pegs
• ropes
• crates
• sticks

Construction station

Provide an indoor or outdoor area for building and construction with:

• wood
• hammers
• screws
• nuts and bolts

Water investigation station

Create an indoor or outdoor water station with:

• funnels
• guttering
• measuring tools
• floating and sinking materials
• scales
• mark-making to record
• sorting buckets

Obstacle course designers

Indoors or outdoors provide:

• cones
• crates
• hoops
• planks
• chalk

Allow children to explore route planning, position, distance, measuring and sequencing.

Local partners

Encourage families to participate or invite a STEM Ambassador to talk to your class about the work they do.

First and second level learning includes:

• angles, symmetry and transformation
• properties of 3D shapes and 2D objects
• Japanese notan

The beauty of maths

The beauty of maths from National Galleries of Scotland includes first and second level learning.

Use visible thinking routines such as see, think and wonder to:

• explore symmetry and pattern in artworks
• create original mathematical art inspired by the images
• challenge learners to explain the maths they can see

Museum maker

Museum Maker from National Museums Scotland includes 3 templates for making symmetrical pictures.

These activities provide opportunities to develop scissor control and reading a list of instructions.

The stag template is suitable as a first level resource.

Unicorn and squirrel templates are suitable for use at second level and beyond.

Some learners at this stage may be able to create their own animal templates with written instructions to help others make them too.

Japanese notan

Teach Kids Art provides a Japanese Notan Art Activity. Learners create striking black-and-white artwork while investigating symmetry, transformation and shape.

You will need:

• black and white paper
• scissors
• a glue stick

First and second level learning includes:

• angles, symmetry and transformation
• properties of 2D Shapes

Learners can create their own shapes or draw more complex shapes. If required, learners could draw around simple 2D shapes as a template.

Measurements are in imperial units but can be converted to metric.

The BBC 3, 2, 1 Go! series provides video clips that encourage learners to explore:

• timekeeping
• scoring
• speed
• shape
• distance

Timing challenge

3, 2, 1 go cycling challenges learners to use timing and data to improve performance and solve real-life mathematical problems.

Learners can work in pairs or small groups to time each other while cycling, skipping or running.

Work collaboratively using stopwatches to record and compare lap times.

Display results in tables or graphs and challenge learners to calculate differences and averages.

Football prediction

The football prediction challenge encourages learners to explore probability and percentages through football penalty predictions and data analysis.

Second level learning includes:

• ideas of chance and uncertainty
• fractions, decimals and percentages
• collect real or simulated penalty data
• compare predictions with outcome

Challenge learners to justify predictions using evidence and apply learning to other sports.

WW2 Hut Building from Archaeology Scotland could be used as a group task. This could be to scale or using the dimensions to create a smaller version. 

You will need:

• bricks
• mortar
• a trowel

The resource includes details of alternative materials to try and how to make your own mortar. 

This activity links to WW2 and demonstrates practical application of: 

• tessellation and measurement 
• properties of 2D Shapes 
• measurement and length 
• angles, symmetry and transformation 
• patterns and relationships