Learning By Topic KS2: Guinness World Records and Mathematics

Below are some current records set/broken involving maths (these aren’t official GWR’s). Have a go at them yourself and see how you get on:

Count by 7s to 126 – fastest time: 5.69 seconds

Fastest time to calculate 10 maths problems involving 4 digit addition and subtraction: 1 minute 49 seconds.

Count up by 7s to 126 with eyes closed: 3.81 seconds.

When people are attempting to break or set a Guinness Word Record, proof of measurement is extremely important. Each record is based on a measurement, whether it is length, weight, area, temperature etc. The accuracy of this measurement is paramount. For many records the measurement needs to be conducted by a suitably qualified professional in the field. Now you practise measuring things accurately and precisely (so if measuring the length of something in metres, you may have to record it in metres, centimetre and millimetres for accuracy). Measure a length, weight of an object, temperature, volume and capacity and anything else you can think of.

Create a number code for the alphabet (e.g. a =1 b=2 be a bit more adventurous than this example) write your theme words using this code – can anyone crack your codes?!

Now ask an adult to write some addition, subtraction, multiplication and division sums in this code. Can you decode these and then solve them?

Find the perimeter and area of a Guinness World Records book.