See this updated page, Mathematics for Easter.

It’s nearly Easter time again, so time for some Mathematical Easter treats!

Also a post for students – a puzzle from Mathisfun which is just an excuse to solve some simultaneous equations (and how to do it on Excel with the neat MINVERSE function!) The post also includes some notes and examples for students on simultaneous equations.

From Transum Mathematics, and perfect for thinking about Systematic Listing Strategies, try this Egg Box Investigation. Transum has several Easter activities in a collection here.

From Nrich try How Many Eggs? Or for younger students, Eggs in Baskets.

If we stay with an eggs theme, I do like You Can’t Make an Omelette from these Freedom and Constraints resources...

From Chris Smith, try his great Easter relay and note the whole set. I have used many of these very successfully – have fun whilst doing plenty of Maths! The Easter relay is available in a whole variety of formats, see this from Chris Smith.

On Teachit Maths, we have an Easter Chick with Easter Coordinate Pictures and Easter Bunny Race. With Easter Bunny Race, watch a race between the Easter bunnies and determine their speed. I like the questions to check understanding, including some harder questions – watch those units!

Teachit Maths, a (very good value) subscription site offers its collection of activities as pdfs free. I have found many high-quality resources here for all ages, including older students (KS5, 16-18).

Look out for any Easter Challenges from Perton School Maths Department.

On the subject of Easter eggs, I must return to this definition. See… WolframAlpha – a little fun!

A simple Easter Egg on Desmos, we have an ellipse and the sine function – note the transformations of the sine function.

Check this great resource from Mr Kingsley, an ideal starter, there are 80 sets of 10 1 and 2 mark questions in this file.

This resource reminded me of some other very useful resources for Retrieval Practice and revision.

Edexcel’s Practice Papers include freely available Foundation Tier one mark questions. There are calculator and non-calculator paper questions and mark schemes from June 2017 through to June 2019 (non-calculator) and to November 2019 for the calculator questions.

On TES, from salimnore, this Excel spreadsheet generates an endless supply of 1 mark questions with the option to display the answers, making an ideal starter. Two versions are available, you can choose 5 or 10 questions to display.

On Corbett Maths you will find a complete collection of Practice Papers, note the Revision resources, including A Bit of Everything Papers; the Foundation papers with 116 questions provide very comprehensive syllabus coverage! Each paper includes a contents list with the relevant teaching video.

This Custom Starter from Transum, is one I have featured before, it allows teachers to select the number of questions and the topics to include; scroll down the page and choose the topics you want from the Concept Selection. It is possible to save a particular selection of topics as the URL for your selection will be generated. It is also possible to drag the panels so your questions are displayed in the desired order. The beginning of a lesson can be an ideal time to review previous learning.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, (check Wolfram Alpha anniversaries and more for March 17th) it seems appropriate to remind readers about Project Maths, an Irish site supporting Mathematics teachers. Looking at the teacher area, many resources are available. Students normally sit the Junior Certificate exam at the age of 14 or 15, after 3 years of post-primary education and the traditional Leaving Certificate examination is the terminal examination of post-primary education and is taken when students are typically 17 or 18 years of age. These teacher resources are for this group of students. A site well worth exploring, looking at Algebra we see many excellent resources, including for example under expressions:

• Pack of visual linear patterns
• Pack of visual quadratic patterns

The student resources include many activities with accompanying GeoGebra files.

These whiteboard templates caught my eye, simply download the file, project it onto your whiteboard, use the interactive menu to choose the background you need and start writing!

Students normally sit the Junior Certificate exam at the age of 14 or 15, after 3 years of post-primary education and from the Graduate Recruitment Bureau A Level Equivalents Guide we see that An Irish Leaving Certificate is roughly equal to two-thirds of an A Level and is the main basis upon which places in universities, institutes of technology and colleges of education are allocated.

These qualifications with their very clear mark schemes provide us with another source of very useful examples. Once you have clicked the checkbox to verify that you have read, understood and accepted the terms and conditions, you can search for papers and mark schemes by subject. As well as marking notes, an excellent feature of these mark schemes is the model solutions provided.

For example, if we look at the Junior Certificate 2017 higher paper, question 6 is on Venn Diagrams; the mark scheme provides a model solution.

Looking at the 2017 Leaving Certificate paper, I see, for example, differentiation from first principles and De Moivre’s Theorem. Again, model solutions are provided as part of the mark scheme.