Maths Karate

Last week I went on an MFL NQT course (although technically I’m not an NQT anymore – received my certificate on Friday, yay!) in Winchester run by Liz Lord. We learnt a lot about the transition between KS2 and KS3 and we were given some great new ideas for MFL activities. I love days like this as I find that, occasionally, I get stuck in a bit of a teaching rut where I seem to do the same sorts of activities over and over. So it’s nice to come away with some fresh ideas and inspiration.

One of the best ideas I took away from the day was Maths Karate. I tried it with my low set Y7s on Tuesday as a starter activity and they loved it. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them that enthusiastic about anything…

You say a number in the target language and hold up the right amount of fingers.  Then say either:

-‘plus’ (and make arms into a plus sign)

-‘moins’ or ‘menos’ (and hold your forearm in front of you horizontally)

-‘fois’ or ‘veces’ (and make an x shape with your arms)

-‘divisé par’ or ‘dividido por’ (and hold your arm in front of you horizontally and punch above and below).

Then say another number and say egal (and put both forearms in front of you on top of each other).

When we did this activity on the NQT day Liz got us to repeat the word and the action after each one, before saying the answer and holding up the correct number of fingers. She then asked us to do this in pairs.