Inquiry and Maths at Work in Athletics (Grade 4)

In preparation for our elementary sports day at Nanjing International School, I am preparing the students by having them work at improving their technique in various events. In today's PE class, the grade 4 students had to put on their thinking caps and show some inquiry and math skills as they had to predict, record, and figure out differences based on their personal results in 4 events: 400-meter run, 50-meter sprint, boot throw, and standing long jump. 

At the start of class, we had a general discussion about the 4 events and talked about which strategies were best. They spoke about it with their peers, coming up with ideas and sharing these ideas with the class. I then handed out the worksheet you see in picture below. You can see the central idea that is at work in this unit on the sheet as well. 

After handing out the worksheets, the students had to predict their results in each of the events that they were going to take part in. We discussed the importance of putting thought into these predictions and to really think about the concept of time in minutes and seconds, as well as, the concept of distance in meters and centimeters

Is predicting a form of inquiry? 
 As the students are making mental connections to time and distance, thinking about relevant units of measurement and how to apply these units of measurement to athletics events, I do believe that true and authentic inquiry is at work. You can see from the picture on the left that the students were engaged in conversation with one another, sharing ideas, and helping each other to make predictions. 

How is maths involved in this lesson?
 Maths is at work right from the get go as the students are thinking about time and distance, units of measurement, and having to record predictions and actual results. To complete this process, the students had to figure out how far off their prediction was from their actual result and record this in the last column of their worksheet. 

Example Student Assessment From This Lesson........

To Sum Up
The lesson was very interesting in the fact that the students not only worked very hard running, jumping, and throwing, they loved it when their result and prediction were close. Some remembered some of their results from last April and wrote these numbers in as predictions only to find that they were much improved since last year's Athletics unit. 

A fun class to be a part of today!!!