Concept Studio
See the idea. Put it to the test.
956 activities from Kindergarten to Year 12, in 13 subject areas. A practical gives the idea, what you need, the steps, what you should see and a safety card. A teacher-led demonstration gives the idea and its hazards; its method is for tutors on the learning platform.
Review
Reviewed before publication (owner’s confirmation, 24 September 2026). That covers every activity here, and a practical’s page lists the sources its author read.
A safety card on every page
The risk, who supervises and the hazards. The 38 teacher-led demonstrations show their idea and hazards here; their materials, steps and sources, and any result, control or note that states a number or an amount, are for tutors and administrators on the learning platform.
School laboratory, not for home
207 activities are medium or high risk. Each says so on its page: In a school laboratory, with a teacher supervising, under the school's risk assessment. Not for home.
Curriculum references
Each activity lists the NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes it supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.
Find an activity
100 activities
Mathematics K–6 · page 2 of 3
Make a kilogram: grams and kilograms on a balance and on scales
A kilogram is 1000 grams, and a litre of water has a mass of about one kilogram, so water and a balance give a feel for both units.
PracticalLow riskOdd or even: pairing counters
An even number of counters pairs up with none left over, an odd number has one left over, and pairing shows why two odd numbers add to an even number.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOne data set, three displays: handfuls of cubes
The same data can be shown as a list, a dot plot or a column graph, and a display that keeps every value on a shared scale shows the shape and spread of the data and makes two groups easier to compare.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOne litre exactly: litres and millilitres
A litre is 1000 millilitres, and a container can be calibrated by pouring in known amounts and marking the level.
PracticalLow riskOne straight cut: splitting a trapezium into new shapes
A single straight cut splits a shape into two shapes whose kinds depend on where the cut starts and ends, and the pieces can be joined again into shapes with different features and the same area.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPerimeter with string: the distance around a shape
Perimeter is the length of the boundary of a shape, so a string laid around the edge and then measured straight gives the same length as adding the sides.
PracticalLow riskPlace-value slide: multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000
Multiplying by 10 moves every digit one place to the left and dividing by 10 moves every digit one place to the right, because each place is worth ten times the place on its right.
Practical, model not builtLow riskReading a thermometer: partial units on a scale
A scaled instrument has marks that stand for fixed steps, and a reading between two marks is estimated from how far along the gap the level sits.
PracticalLow riskReading time to the minute and timing what happens between
The minute hand moves one small mark each minute and the hour hand moves with it, so a time can be read to the minute and the time between two readings can be counted.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRenaming with base-10 materials: numbers to tens of thousands
Each place is ten times the place to its right, so a number can be traded into different combinations of thousands, hundreds, tens and ones without changing its value.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSharper or wider than a right angle: angle testers and turns
An angle is an amount of turn between two arms, and every angle can be compared with a right angle (a quarter turn) to name it acute, right, obtuse, straight or reflex.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSkeleton models: faces, edges and vertices
A prism or pyramid can be built from edges and corners alone, and counting the faces, edges and vertices of each model identifies its key features and lets different objects be compared.
PracticalLow riskSquare centimetres and a square metre: covering with a grid
Area is measured in square units of a fixed size, a square centimetre for small surfaces and a square metre for large ones, and 10 000 square centimetres fit in a square metre.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTangram: seven pieces, one square
Composite shapes are built from familiar shapes, and the seven tangram pieces are fractions of one square, so every shape made from all seven pieces has the same area as the square.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTenths and hundredths: a flat as one whole
When a flat is one whole, a rod is one tenth and a unit cube is one hundredth, so decimals name parts of a whole in the same base-10 pattern as whole numbers.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTimes tables on a circle: an algorithm that draws patterns
Following a fixed sequence of steps (multiply, keep the last digit, join that point on a ten-point circle) turns each times table into a shape, and the shape depends on the factors the multiplier shares with 10.
Practical, model not builtLow riskToss and roll: recording repeated chance experiments
Repeating a chance experiment many times gives results that vary from trial to trial, yet the counts for equally likely outcomes come out close to each other over many trials.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTrading with base-ten materials: regrouping to add and subtract
When a column holds ten or more pieces, ten are traded for one piece of the next place, and when a column holds too few to take away, one piece of the next place is traded for ten, so the value never changes while the pieces do.
Practical, model not builtLow risk24-hour time and real timetables
The 24-hour clock numbers the hours from 00 to 23 so that a time needs no am or pm, and the length of a trip on a timetable is the difference between two times, counted on to the next hour and then to the arrival time.
Practical, model not builtLow riskA half, a quarter, a fifth and a tenth of real quantities
A unit fraction of a quantity is found by dividing the quantity into that many equal parts, so 1/4 of 2 L is 500 mL and 1/5 of 1 m is 20 cm, and measuring one part checks the division.
PracticalLow riskAngles on a straight line and at a point
Angles are measured in degrees with a protractor, the angles on a straight line add to 180 degrees and the angles around a point add to 360 degrees.
Practical, model not builtLow riskArea model: multiplying on grid paper
A product such as 23 × 14 is the number of squares in a 23 by 14 rectangle, and splitting the rectangle along tens and ones shows each partial product of the written method.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBalance puzzles: finding an unknown mass
When a balance is level, both sides hold the same mass, so removing equal amounts from each side keeps it level and reveals an unknown.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBelow zero: integers on a thermometer and in a lift
Numbers below zero sit on the same line as numbers above it, so a thermometer and a lift shaft show where negative numbers are and how far apart two integers lie.
Practical, model not builtLow riskChange over time: a line graph of cooling water
A line graph shows how a quantity changes over time, and the slope of the line shows whether the change is fast or slow.
PracticalMedium riskCoin toss: more trials, less variation
The fraction of heads in a run of tosses wanders far from one half for a few tosses and settles closer to one half as the number of tosses grows.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCoordinates on the floor: the Cartesian plane in four quadrants
A point is named by its distance right or left of the origin and then up or down, so negative coordinates place points in all four quadrants.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCubic centimetres, litres and displacement
A cube 10 cm on each side holds 1000 cubic centimetres, which is one litre, and the volume of a solid object can be found from the water it pushes aside.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCut and rearrange: parallelograms and triangles from rectangles
A parallelogram cut along its height and rearranged becomes a rectangle of the same area, and a rectangle cut along a diagonal gives two triangles of half its area.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEstimate the docket, then check it: rounding to judge whether a total is reasonable
Rounding every price before adding gives a total close enough to judge whether the printed total is reasonable, and the rounding rule chosen decides whether the line-by-line errors cancel or pile up.
Practical, model not builtLow riskFraction strips on a 24 cm whole: adding and subtracting
Fractions with the same or related denominators are added and subtracted by measuring them as lengths of the same whole, which gives the same result as renaming them with a common denominator.
Practical, model not builtLow riskHand spans: a dot plot, the mode and the range
Measurements collected from a group vary, and a dot plot shows the shape of that variation together with the most common value and the spread from smallest to largest.
Practical, model not builtLow riskLength times width: where the area formula comes from
A rectangle on a centimetre grid holds rows of equal squares, so its area is the number of squares in a row times the number of rows, which is length times width.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMake a cubic metre
A cubic metre is a cube one metre on each edge, holds a million cubic centimetres or a thousand litres, and rooms are measured in it.
PracticalLow riskMatchstick patterns: finding the rule
A growing pattern built from matchsticks has a rule that links the position of a term to the number of sticks, and the rule predicts terms that are too big to build.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOne sheet of paper: dividing measurements by 10, 100 and 500
A quantity too small to measure directly is found by measuring many copies and dividing, and dividing by 10 or 100 moves every digit one or two places to the right, while dividing by 500 is that two-place shift followed by a division by 5.
PracticalLow riskOrdering fractions with different denominators
Fractions with different denominators are compared by placing them on the same number line or by renaming them with a common denominator, and a benchmark such as one half settles many comparisons at once.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPercentages on a metre rule and a jug
A percentage is a number of hundredths of a whole, so on a metre rule 40 percent is 40 cm and on a 250 mL jug it is 100 mL.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPlanning a class event to a set budget from advertised prices, then checking the spend
A plan is built by turning a number of people into a number of packs, packs into a cost and a cost into a decision against a fixed budget, and the model is only finished when the real docket is set beside the plan and the difference is accounted for.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRectangles from counters: factors, primes and square numbers
The rectangles that can be made from a number of counters show its factors, a prime makes only a single row, and a square number makes a square.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRemainders in context: 50 shared into groups of 6
The same division, 50 ÷ 6, has different answers in different situations: round up when everyone needs a place, drop the remainder when only full groups count, and split it into a fraction or decimal when the quantity can be cut.
PracticalLow riskRuler drop: measuring reaction time and comparing two hands
Reaction time can be measured by how far a falling ruler drops before it is caught, and a class investigation compares two groups of such measurements with displays on a shared scale.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSame fence, different paddocks: fixed perimeter, changing area
Rectangles with the same perimeter can have very different areas, and the area is largest when the sides are closest to equal.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSieve of Eratosthenes: an algorithm that finds the primes to 100
Crossing out the multiples of each prime in turn removes every composite number, and once the multiples of 2, 3, 5 and 7 are gone every number left up to 100 is prime, because 11 × 11 is already more than 100.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSlicing prisms: parallel cross-sections
Every slice of a prism parallel to its base is the same shape and size as the base, and objects that are not prisms give slices that change.
PracticalLow riskSlide, flip, turn: transformations with tracing paper and tessellations
A translation, a reflection or a rotation moves a shape without changing its size or angles, and shapes tessellate when the angles meeting at each point add to 360 degrees.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThousandths: decimals on a metre and a zooming number line
A millimetre is one thousandth of a metre, so decimals with three places are lengths on a metre rule and are ordered by looking at each place in turn.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTruncated axes: how a column graph can exaggerate a difference
When the vertical axis of a column graph starts above zero, the column heights no longer compare the values, so a small difference can look large, and redrawing from zero shows the true comparison.
Practical, model not builtLow risk
For tutors and administrators
The materials and steps of every teacher-led demonstration are on the learning platform, with the safety card first. Sign in with a tutor or administrator account to read them.