Bowling Match Maths

Get busy and creative, recycling empty plastic bottles into bowling pins (skittles). Try knocking the bowling pins down with a ball and develop your maths skills while you play.

What you need:

• Recycled plastic bottles
• Glue (Top tip: White craft glue dries clear)
• Materials for decorating bottles e.g. recycled wrapping paper, construction paper, bits of fabric, ribbon, kitchen foil, buttons, wool
• A soft ball or a ball made out of a pair of socks rolled inside each other

What to do:

1. Make sure that your bottles are empty and clean.
2. Tear or cut pieces of gift wrap, fabric, ribbon etc. and glue them to the bottles. Have fun and be creative!
3. Let the glue dry.
4. Set your bowling pins up. (If you made ten, set them up with four in the back row, three in the row in front of it, then two and one at the front.)
5. Roll the ball at the bowling pins and see how many you can knock over.
6. Develop your maths skills as you play by answering questions. e.g. If there are 10 bottles altogether and you knocked four down, how many are left standing?

Top tip: If you want to play outside, stop the bottles from blowing over by part filling them with water, sand or gravel. Use a harder ball to knock them over.

Be a maths detective:

Put numbers on the bottles and have fun practicing your computation skills while you play.

Top tip: Write the numbers on sticky notes, or scraps of paper fastened to the bottles with Blu-tack, so that they can be changed easily to match the player's maths abilities or the mathematical operations, e.g.addition, subtraction, multiplication, being used.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Add together the numbers on the bottles that you knock over and record the total.

e.g. 2 + 4 + 6 = 12

If you are playing with someone else, think about these questions:

• Who scored the highest?
• What is the difference between the lowest and highest score?

Start with a target number e.g. 30.

• Add together the numbers on the bottles that you knock over and write down the total (your score).

  e.g.. 2 + 4 = 6

• Set the bowling pins back up and roll the ball again.

• Add together the numbers on the bottles that you knock over and write down this total (score).

  e.g. 6 + 4 = 10

• Add the two scores together.

e.g. 6 + 10 = 16

Have you reached your target number yet? How many more points do you need to reach the target number?

• Keep on playing till you reach your target number.

Start with a target number e.g. 200

• Multiply together the numbers on the bottles that you knock over and write down the total (your score).

e.g. 2 x 4 x 6 = 48

• Set the bowling pins back up and roll the ball again.

• Multiply together the numbers on the bottles that you knock over and write down this total (score).

e.g. 2 x 6 x 8 = 96

• Add the two scores together.

e.g. 48 + 96 = 144

Have you reached your target number yet? How many more points do you need to reach the target number?

• Keep on playing till you reach your target number.