Parallel from Simon Singh is written to challenge your student mathematicians; all materials and resources are completely free and teachers will have access to all the student scores from the Parallelograms which are automatically marked.
Some exciting news currently:
Complete Maths CPD
From Complete Maths, try some Bitesize CPD, CPD Shorts.
Free for students who are intending to study Mathematics at university, an online event from the Institute of Mathematics and its applications, ‘What it’s like to study Mathematics at University?’ Conference 2022. Find out what it’s like to study Mathematics at University, hear from some current students and guest speakers on topics such as university applications, interviews, tips for entering the field of mathematics at an early career stage, and postgraduate research. Full details are available on the IMA site.
From Wayne Chadburn, I do like his little bit of Maths each day calendars, it’s almost May, so we can start with a May calendar. See these calendars for March, April and May. Do check all three calendars as these have been written to focus on each of the three papers and the topic lists announced by Edexcel. Whilst written with Edexcel in mind these are great revision resources whichever board you use. Full solutions are provided.
Wayne Chadburn
Thinking about revision for A Level, from Jack Brown on TL Maths, an incredible resource for students who have completed the A level course, A-Level Maths Whole Course recap. Jack brown spent two days recording this 3 hours, 40 minutes video. Thank you, Jack, from students and teachers everywhere.
On Dr Frost Maths, use this list if you are looking for a specific topic – All Exam Skills/Key Skills on DrFrostMaths, I have done as suggested and created myself an Excel spreadsheet so I can easily filter a search.
Do contexts help students to understand mathematics or do they just make it harder for them to untangle the mathematics from all the extraneous information? I think the answer is yes – both of these happen on different occasions. So, what is it that gives some contexts the potential to be powerfully illuminating?
Colin Foster
I do like the mixing paint context, I have used the Nrich problem Mixing Paints many times, this has an interactivity to check your answers.
Nrich – Mixing Paints
Did you know that you can mix colours on WolframAlpha?
Edexcel – Teacher’s Guide to Command Words
Literacy Skills in Maths includes many ideas and resources; at the end of the post there is a short section on further reading which I have updated with articles from Cameron Setter and Clare Feeney.
On Transum Mathematics, we now have Equatero which John Tranter created having seen the TV game show, Lingo.
Transum Mathematics
The rules are simple – find the calculation – any numbers or symbols in the correct place are shown as green, any numbers or symbols that are correct but in the wrong place will be yellow and any numbers or symbols that are not included in the calculation will be red. Rather an addictive game – but plenty of thinking! This has been added to the Number collection in the Puzzles & Games series.
It’s great to see Jonathan Hall adding manuals for his great resources on MathsBot. Here is Bar Modellingfor example.
See post on Bar Modelling for problem examples and resources.
Thinking Blocks – Math Playground
It’s really helpful when sites have a clear ‘What’s new?’ type section or you can easily search by recent additions and/or subscribe to a newsletter. Just a few examples from the many excellent sites for Mathematics:
On Transum see Breaking News where you will find information on new and updated resources. Current news includes the resources mentioned above, Equatero and Vocabero.
What’s new at Desmos? This is really comprehensive – a great way to keep up to date.
On Dr Austin Mathsselect New from the Menu, I see some more of her always high quality resources – I’m a fan of Fill in the Blanks (as well as all her other resources!) For a whole collection of Fill in the Blanks type resources from various sources, see this post.
Updates including the brilliant Interwoven Maths from Nathan Day, Bingo retrieval activities from Dan Rodriguez-Clark and pages from MEI on the Use of Technology from Primary to KS5.
Teachit Maths
Included in the collection of Christmas Resources from Teachit Maths we have The twelve days of Christmas budget, twelve challenges for students to practise percentages. The resource mentions The PNC Christmas Price Index, an annual tradition from PNC Bank which shows the current cost for one set of each of the gifts given in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” For craft lovers note the Christmas Crafts with full instructions on how to make the12 gifts from the Christmas Price Index.
For A level students, how about some Christmas Mechanics?! This resource is a collection of six legacy M1 past paper questions covering some of the Edexcel M1 syllabus with a Christmas theme. The questions are taken from 2004 exam papers.
From the brilliant Mathigon site, see Puzzles 2021, and perhaps have a look back at their puzzles from earlier years. Mathigon releases a puzzle at 9 am GMT every day in December; solutions are available on the following day.
Mathigon Puzzles 2021
In my post earlier this week, Advent – Opening the Christmath doors, I mentioned that some of these Advent calendar resources, provide useful for end of term Christmas activities for examination classes. In this category we have for example:
J Calderwood – Advent Calendars
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.
Added to Bingo resources, try these Bingo retrieval activities from Dan Rodriguez-Clark. This generator has several settings giving you a choice of topics, including some for Post 16, the number of questions and your chosen display settings.
Looking at the latest newsletter from Chris Smith, (highly recommended), I see he mentions Stella’s Stunners, this is an excellent site, I featured it in my post on Proof, it has so many excellent resources.
Stella’s Stunners
Stella’s Stunners is a library of more than 700 Non-Routine Mathematics Problems for Middle and High School Students; these problems certainly encourage mathematical thinking. You can filter the problems to narrow your search and usefully create a pdf document of your chosen problems. Perhaps try Symbol Pushing or Logic. Try the Introductory Problem Set which consists of twenty problems designed to show you how to use the problem library. A comprehensive user guide is available.
🎄 Get into the festive spirit with our Advent Calendars🎄
From 1 December you can access our STEM Advent Calendars which contain 24 days of teaching support including CPD, resources and festive activities!
If you have just a few minutes, then why not try a Maths in a minute article from Plus Magazine. A recent article by Kate Stansfield is on Maths and music. If this is a subject that interests you and you have more minutes, you can find a whole collection of articles exploring Maths and Music. The article in the Maths in a minute series includes a discussion on why some pairs of notes sound “nice” to us.
We could hear some different intervals on WolframAlpha which will also give you the pitch difference between the two notes.
Additional information includes the frequencies of each note, you can also find related musical queries. I spent rather longer than a minute on this, particularly having discovered other Music examples on WolframAlpha! You can get information on songs and artists, audio waveforms, and musical instruments as well as Music Theory.
Maths in a minute reminded me of The Mathematical Moments site which features many downloadable pdfs, posters that show the role that Mathematics plays in Science, Technology and Human Culture. A short or more detailed version of each poster is available and a search is provided. This is included in my post on Posters.
Continuing with the theme of Maths in minutes, From Pearson Qualifications, try Tea Break Training, these short videos which offer targeted professional development training on teaching strategies, content areas and support for GCSE Maths.
If you are preparing students for STEP examinations, have a look at this webinar from Nrich which In this webinar Claire explains how STEP questions can be used to help students prepare for a University Maths degree and demonstrates the resources available on the STEP Support Programme. (maths.org/step). This has been added to the University Admissions Tests page which includes many resources for students aiming at high A level grades.
