Easter Maths Activities for KS2: Topical Maths Problem Solving

With Easter getting ever closer, and pupils getting more and more excited about the abundance of chocolate that may be about to come their way, we thought that it was time for some Easter maths activities for KS2! The activities in this blog post are perfect for the last week of the spring term, just as Lent is drawing to a close.

Before we kick off – a Lent themed idea for primary teachers

People who observe Lent – typically but not always Christians – make a promise or a commitment. The commitments people usually make involve some kind of self-improvement or giving up a luxury or bad habit; such as coffee, or unhealthy foods like pizza and chocolate.

For Christians, Lent can also mean a time of fasting, which celebrates Jesus and his journey into the desert for 40 days. And Easter Eggs at Easter are the feast at the end of the fast!

This Lent – give up giving up in maths before Easter!

We wanted to share an idea around commitment with you that one of our teacher colleagues used to adopt, with great success in maths.

She would use Lent as an opportunity to encourage children to ‘give up giving up on maths’ for six weeks.

The deal was that if they made an extra special effort to develop a positive attitude to maths then at the end of the six weeks, they would all be rewarded (often, yes, with chocolates). It’s important to note that the focus of this kind of deal must be all around effort and mindset, not attainment in order for it to work.

You can emphasise the importance of perseverance, diligence and a growth mindset – you can even draw from the information on growth mindset featured in this blog post. Then, after all their hard work, you can reward them with their KS2 Easter maths activities!

But why is this an important thing to do? 

By ‘encouraging your pupils to give up giving up on maths’, you’re emphasising important qualities such as tenacity and determination, putting them into practice, and then reinforcing this behaviour, all the while focused on improving confidence and learning around maths.

Plus, making a deal with your class is a great way to engage them – and even create better relationships between you and your pupils.

So it’s worth thinking about this deal, and talking about this aspect of Lent with your pupils, whether they’re year 6 or otherwise. And who knows, maybe it’s a deal you could make with your children for their maths lessons for a few weeks this year or next?

Now for the KS2 Easter maths activities!

It’s now time to get the ball rolling with these Easter maths activities for the end of Lent. Challenge your pupils to complete the activities below, and then reward them for doing so. If you model the ‘give up giving up’ deal over one lesson you’ll soon show them how it’s done (but don’t forget to keep your end of the bargain too…)

Easter maths activity 1: Chocolate Shapes

Holly cannot eat any chocolates from her favourite selection box because she has given up chocolate for Lent.

Instead of eating them, she decides to do an investigation.

These are the shapes of the chocolates she has in her box (sides marked x are the same length) and each colour represents a different shape:

Using the picture above, answer these questions:

1. How many different ways can you use the chocolates to make a rectangle?
2. Can you make a rhombus?
3. Can you make a parallelogram?
4. Can you make a regular hexagon?
5. How many different triangles can you make?

Easter maths activity 2: Coffee Calculations

Each day, Mr Jackson drinks 3 cups of instant coffee at home, and twice a week he buys coffee from his local coffee shop.

• A UK coffee shop sells coffee for £2.75 per cup.
• A 200g jar of instant coffee costs £4.60.
• 1.8g makes 1 cup of coffee.

Using the information above, read and answer the questions below:

1. How much money could Mr Jackson save if he gives up coffee for Lent? Round amounts of money to the nearest penny.
2. How much money would he save if he gave up just the coffee he buys from his local shop?

Easter maths activity 3: Bunny Bonanza

150 baby rabbits have been born at farmer Jones’ farm this Easter. She won’t have room to keep them all on her farm once they are grown up, so she has to give some away to caring homes that would like a bunny as a pet!

Using the information above, read and answer the questions below:

1. If farmer Jones gives away two-thirds of the 150 rabbits, how many will she have left?
2. If farmer Jones manages to give away 97 of the rabbits, how many will she have left?
3. Farmer Jones wants to charge people £1.50 to take a pet rabbit home with them. She is going to give this money to a Rabbit charity and manages to sell all of the rabbits. How much money has she raised for the rabbit charity?

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These activities are designed to be easily adaptable, so if you are looking for some KS1 Easter activities, all you have to do is change the numbers to match the level of knowledge in your class!

Looking for more? Take a look at these other maths problem solving investigations for KS2 or fun maths activities for KS1 and KS2 and fun maths lessons for KS2.

Let us know how you get on with these maths activities @thirdspacetweet. We’d love to know as our purpose is to support schools and parents to improve pupils outcomes in maths with blogs, resources, and personalised 1-to-1 maths tuition.

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