Back to library
Maths in Town Squared: maths in Sprite flights
About these maths activities
In this activity, children help cleaned-up sprites find their way home by cutting rifts in the atmosphere. They do this by tracing 2D shapes in the sky using a pre-marked grid.
When they enter this puzzle space, children see a grid and a sign indicating the number and type of shapes they need to create on this grid. The grid is marked with dots, and a mentor explains how to link the dots together to form the required shape, and the other puzzle ‘rules’ (eg: no overlapping lines or shared dots).
A Spright flights game in progress. Eight dots need to be joined together to make 2 rectangles. The [?] button provides guidance on the attributes of a rectangle.
The child’s task is to understand what kind of shapes are required in each grid, then draw from one dot to another until they have made that shape. A successful shape is signalled by a happy sprite flying through the shape and into the space beyond. Children can make different shapes and remove them, experimenting until they work out the solution.
There are two activities in Sprite flights, each with a different level of challenge.
Shape gates
The Shape gates activity asks children to locate and trace the identified shapes within the grid. This could be rectangles, triangles, parallelograms, squares, or a combination of each. Early levels introduce a single shape in different quantities, sizes and rotations. Later levels mix up the shapes in a way that requires reading, planning and testing.
Each puzzle level includes hint pop ups that describe the required shapes in more detail.
The Shape gates grid showing 8 dots ready to be joined up. The sign on the left shows the task: make 2 shapes of two different types.
The same Shape gates grid with 1 of the shapes completed. The child can try joining dots to make lots of different shapes, but will not progress until they have worked out how to make the specific shapes needed for this grid.
Area gates
The Area gates activity invites children to locate and trace triangles with an area of 6 grid squares. Levels start with one or two triangles to find, and progressively require more planning and thought to find triangles of the correct area.
If a child traces a triangle that doesn’t have an area of 6 squares, they receive feedback and hints on how to work out the shape they need. If they have 3 unsuccessful attempts within a game, children are invited to play a simpler puzzle.
Each puzzle level includes hint pop ups that describe how to work out the area of a triangle.
The Area gates grid showing 6 dots ready to be joined up. The sign on the left shows the task: make 2 triangles with an area of 6 squares.
The same Area gates grid with 1 of the shapes completed. The child progresses when they have traced the required shapes for this grid.