Maths Day

Five of our able mathematicians attended a special maths inspiration day at George Street School today. It was a great experience to work with children from other schools, exploring maths through art.

 

We looked at Damien Hirst’s Spot paintings to investigate square numbers and factors, and to estimate how long it would take to do a real spot painting. Did you know that Damien Hirst uses assistants to do the actual paintings? Or that every spot is a slightly different colour? Our group created their own Spot design

 

 

 

Then the work of artist Carl Andre was used to inspire us to work with Dominoes to create 3 dimensional shapes.

 

 

 

Finally, the sculptures of Anthony Gormley were used to investigate weight, density and volume. Everyone made a small plasticene figure and then we had to think carefully about how to estimate how many of our tiny figures would be needed to fill the hall at George Street School. Our estimate was that 252,000 figures (or a quarter of a million!) would be needed.

 

 

 

We also learnt about the Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco who made a ball of plasticine the same weight as his own body weight and then rolled it through the streets of New York to symbolize the impact that everyday life has on us. Can you guess how big a ball of plasticine is needed the weigh the same as a grown man? Tennis ball sized? Football sized? Spacehopper sized?

 

If you want to know the answer then please ask Callum, Dylan, Max, Ollie or Willow!

 

Andrzej Gaudyn and I thoroughly enjoyed accompanying the children on their Maths day.

 

Alison Wilkinson