Every so often you see an inspiring example of history and numeracy working together seamlessly. Such a lesson was taught by Ros Boulton of South Farnborough Infants. She wanted her children to do far more than draw a simple timeline of Florence Nightingale’s life. She wanted them to make one, and to scale!! This was ambitious – all that glue and scissors! – but also highly successful as you’ll see. Mathematics inspectors saw the lesson taught later and agreed that it was a superb example of great Mathematics. To help you to visualize the lesson I have included a PowerPoint slideshow of the 11 images I took when Ros and the children were at work. I am grateful to the talented staff at South Farnborough infants for their inspiring ideas and permission to share them with a wider audience.
Learning objectives
- children grasp that Florence Nightingale’s life can be divided into distinct phases
- they can consider the advantages of different mental methods for calculating the relative length of each period
- they can produce a timeline of their own, cut to scale
- they grasp that the most significant period of her life was actually the shortest.
- they appreciate that Florence was
