Learning By Topic KS2: Pandas and Mathematics

Did you know that giant pandas eat between 12-38kg of bamboo every day?! If you had two giant pandas at your zoo, how much bamboo would you need to have to ensure they had enough food for a week (It’s probably better to assume that both pandas will eat the maximum of 38kg to ensure there is enough) How much bamboo for a fortnight? Extension: How much for each month of the year? How much for a whole year?

Can you look up the measurements of a giant panda? You could make this an outdoor learning experience by measuring and drawing to size the outline of a panda on a hard surface with chalk or by collecting twigs, leaves etc and using them to mark out the shape and size of the panda. Top Tip: You could also perhaps do this for other species of pandas to compare sizes.

Imagine you are travelling to China to visit one of the panda reserves in Chengdu. See if you can plan a budget for this overseas adventure. Consider, cost of flights, accommodation, spending money, food etc.

See if you can find out the approximate size of a giant panda’s footprint and measure the footprint out. Perhaps you could make giant panda footprints in your garden!

See if you can 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?