It’s December! So many mathsy doors to open!
See my Advent Calendar collection which is kept updated.
(See also Christmas Maths Resources)
Now it’s December – you can open Transum door 1 to reveal this gem!
I do like this Dec 1st Transum activity. Use the given palette to make sure that all the trees are decorated differently – brilliant for thinking about systematic listing strategies. Note the different levels available.
Look at the collections on Nrich on Working Systematically.
Staying with Nrich…
Nrich publishes annual Advent Calendars – one for Primary (2023) and one for Secondary (2023). Both feature twenty-four problems, one for each day in the run-up to Christmas. Nrich states that the problems are ideal for working on collaboratively, either with friends at school, or with friends and family members at home. A real strength of Nrich – solutions will be published which are based on students’ work.
From Plus Magazine, see the Plus Advent Calendar 2023; this year, Plus revisits some favourite episodes of their Maths on the move podcast. For December 1st, Oli Freke explains how frequency is related to pitch!
“Whether it’s the maths of chocolate, new breakthroughs in pure mathematics, or the mathematical sound of music, we hope you enjoy this selection of Maths on the move episodes!”
Plus Magazine December 2023
Both Nrich and Plus Magazine have published such good collections of Advent resources; clearly, for an Advent Calendar, the year does not matter so we have lots of choices! See for example this whole collection of advent calendars on Nrich; note the different themes available – a Sudoku for each day perhaps? The 2016 Primary Calendar featured tasks to encourage mathematical habits of mind something we need to encourage in students of all ages.
From Matthew Scroggs, Christmas 2024 is coming.
Or try his Advent Calendar for 2023; behind each day (except Christmas Day), there is a puzzle with a three-digit answer; solve the puzzles to help Santa!
It’s nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: a machine in Santa’s toy factory has malfunctioned, and is unable to finish building all the presents that Santa needs. You need to help Santa work out how to fix the broken machine so that he can build the presents and deliver them before Christmas is ruined for everyone.
Matthew Scroggs – Advent 2023
Keep an eye on Mathsbox for the 12 links of Christmas and enter the competition for a chance to win a subscription. If you are on X, then watch for the links from @mathsbox1.
From the brilliant Mathigon site, we have 2023 Puzzle Calendars, puzzles are revealed at 9am GMT every day in December and solutions are available on the following day. And perhaps have a look back at their puzzles from earlier years…
From the brilliant Mathigon site, we have 2023 Puzzle Calendars, puzzles are revealed at 9am GMT every day in December and solutions are available on the following day. And perhaps have a look back at their puzzles from earlier years…
Looking again at some of these Advent calendar resources, I think many are useful for end-of-term Christmas activities for examination classes. In this category we have for example:
J Calderwood has provided three Advent Calendars – Advanced Higher, HIgher and N5 Maths for Scottish Students. A great revision resource that could be adapted for different courses.
Alternatively how about a Christmas Revision Calendar from Access Maths? Three Christmas Calendars are available, one for KS3, and two for GCSE – Foundation and one for Higher.
On Control Alt Achieve, Eric Curts will be wrapping up 2023, by sharing some of his favorite “Cool Tools”…
As we wrap up 2023 I will be sharing 24 of my favorite “Cool Tools” from this year, with one new entry per day from December 1st through 24th (sort of like an EdTech advent calendar).
For this year I am going with the theme of artificial intelligence tools and resources, since that has been the hot topic.
Eric Curts – Control Alt Achieve
In Eric’s post, Cool Tools 23, you can see several ways to check out each entry, including an advent-type slideshow.