Festival of Triangles

Festival of Triangles is a whole-school celebration of maths.

In essence, it's a triangle-themed maths week that leads up to an event, usually held on a Thursday straight after school, to which you invite your whole school community.

During the week, children carry out activities that build up excitement as well as supporting their maths learning. They make triangular bunting, learn a song, and make tetrahedrons from drinking straws.  

On the day itself, you set up the school hall with a range of ‘zones’ so that children and parents can do mathematical craft, colouring and making or relax together with mathematical activities. One zone will involve creating a large, very mathematical structure from all those tetrahedrons.

There’s scope to vary and add as much as you like – some schools just use the ideas we suggest, and others add a whole range of extra activities.

For the school:

• Celebrate maths just like you celebrate other subjects!
• Bring parents, children and teachers together in an informal setting, supporting community
• Find out how parents feel about maths
• Have something else to show the inspectors about how you work with parents
• Broaden understanding of creative maths activities and how they can support learning

For the lead member(s) of staff:

• Develop / support leadership skills – planning and delegating
• Learn about working with parents/carers – particularly, how to market to them

For the children and their families:

• Families enjoy doing maths together
• Parents and children engage in mathematical activities, showing concentration and perseverance
• Parents and children broaden their view of what maths is
• People remember the event as an enjoyable maths experience
• Parents feel more confident to engage with their children’s mathematical ideas
• Parents feel more confident to speak to teachers about maths

The STEM Directory is provided as a service to support you in finding enrichment opportunities. The activities are offered by external providers and are not endorsed by STEM Learning. We are not responsible for their content or delivery.