Speed Circle

Speed Circle
A simple activity to improve speed of mental calculations

This is just a rather basic idea to develop some speed in mental calculations. I'm sure many people use it already. The activity should be timed.

A specified number of children stand in a circle (or sit/stand around their table). The teacher gives one person a starting number. They then have to carry out a specified operation on that number (which has been given to the group in advance). The child says the answer and his/her answer is the number that the next child has to perform the operation on. This continues round and round the circle until a target number is passed.

E.g. "Okay, I want you to add on 5 this time until you get past 40. Your starting number is 2." "7".. "12".. "17"... etc .. "42" stop!

Obviously you can use this to test and practise a wide variety of things. E.g. adding/subtracting 10 to numbers, adding/subtracting decimals etc.