Lifeboat Practice

The crew has a practice lifeboat drill but all the passengers get in a terrible muddle. The crew try to get organized with Bradley looking after some passengers and Fiz looking after others and Flo putting them into lifeboats. Each lifeboat holds five passengers so if Bradley sends four, how many should Fiz send? She's not sure and the boat is overfull again. Bradley can count on his fingers, but if the boat sank it would take too long to do the sums that way. They realize they'll have to learn their number pairs which add to five off by heart. They make number signs in case they can't hear each other, and this time, when Ted blows the hooter for practice, Bradley and Fiz know how may passengers they each can send so every lifeboat has five occupants. The practice goes very well, but Flo would like to add a number too. Are there three numbers that add up to five?

The sixty Number Crew programmes bring maths to life for 5 to 7 year olds, providing an entertaining and imaginative world for children to enjoy and explore maths. The action takes place aboard an unusual cruise ship, the SS Mathematical, where the human crew do their best to look after a collection of animal passengers.

In each programme the crew encounter a mathematical problem. Viewers are encouraged to join the Number Crew in learning the mental strategies and skills they need to solve the problem. A rich mixture of 3-D and 2-D animation, story, song, spectacular studio sequences and real life images combine to make a very successful and popular series.