Now it’s December – you can open Transum door 1 to reveal this gem!
Transum Maths Advent Calendar
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 all the wonderful collections on Nrich on Working Systematically.
Charlie said: “Alison, think of a two-digit number. Reverse the digits and add your answer to your original number. I bet your answer is a multiple of 11.”
For more on being systematic, we could work out how many triangles are inside the 5-pointed Christmas star on the Problem Solving Calendar from Mark Dawes. Mark has provided useful worksheets to accompany some problems including this one.
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.
Part of the Lesson Planning series includes Vocabulary, which includes a variety of resources including vocabulary activities, clear definitions of mathematics vocabulary and also command words used in examinations.
Edexcel – Teacher’s Guide to Command Words
See for example, from Edexcel – this Teacher’s Guide to Command Words, not only do we have commentary on what is expected from students when a particular commonly used command word is used but examples of questions to exemplify the use of the word.
Pearson – Comprehension Tasks
From Pearson, see Maths – Diversity and Inclusion, a set of resources including comprehension tasks. This set has been designed for each year group to engage in one themed literacy task per term. Look at the Term 1 resource on Famous Mathematicians, this four-page document has an activity for each of Years 7, 8, 9 and 10. A short paragraph on a famous mathematician is followed by 10 questions to answer.
The theme for Term 2 is Engineering.
These resources have been written by Jenny Hill Parker, you can find all these Comprehension resources here where you will also find Term 3 on Astronomy and Term 4 on Sport.
Jenny hosted a Twitter mathscpdchat where she asked “what does literacy in mathematics mean to you, and how do you address it in your teaching?” A summary of this session hosted by NCETM can be found here. The summary includes all the resources mentioned in the session as well as the conversation. The discussion included Freyer Models.
Freyer Model from Freyer-Model.co.uk
From Teachit Maths, there are some excellent resources to develop literacy skills in Maths. You can see these and other literacy resources here.
I do like The language of ratio which is a collection of 21 ratio problems for students to sort into categories and then complete. The problems are designed to help students decide what a ratio question is asking them to do. There are three categories of problems: create/simplify a ratio, use a ratio to find one quantity when others are known, divide quantities in a given ratio.
Or perhaps try a Mathematics comprehension exercise; this resource includes an excerpt from the prospectus for the fake BODMAS international school for students to read, a set of 12 questions about what they have read and full solutions. See also the free resource, a whole school approach, Closing the word gap: activities for the classroom – secondary which includes a PowerPoint and pdf file, the subjects covered are english, maths, science, geography, and history. Resources for Primary are also available.
One of my favourite maths resources! Maths comprehensions on 12 different topics (such as mountains, rivers, etc.) which then challenge children to retrieve and use mathematical information from the text and graphs to answer questions. https://t.co/n4nPs68qL9#edutwitterpic.twitter.com/pQEg158BHm
On the language of ratio, remember AQA’s modular Teacher Training packs, including a pack on ratio that includes activities and discussion prompts on switching representations, combining ratios, problem-solving with ratio and dividing quantities in a given ratio. This and many more resources for learning and teaching about ratio can be found in my post, Ratio and Proportion.
AQA Teacher Training pack – Ratio
Explaining in Maths is a set of 4 posters that show model answers and common misconceptions. Another poster on the mode is also available.
Teachit Maths – Explaining in maths posters Mathematics Key Stage 3 Programme of Study
In my post on Proof, I began with the importance of spoken language. Spoken language is so important in students’ development, the KS3 Programme of Study quite rightly stresses the importance of spoken and written language. Both spoken and written language and notation are key. This applies to all key stages from definitions and examples and non-examples at key stage 3 to proof by contradiction – writing negations of statements at KS5. For many students, if their ability to write mathematics clearly and succinctly is poor this may well be a result of their not speaking about mathematics clearly. Conversations in class where students explain their thinking are so valuable.
“Most remarks made by children consist of correct ideas very badly expressed. A good teacher will be very wary of saying ‘No, that’s wrong.’ Rather, he will try to discover the correct idea behind the inadequate expression. This is one of the most important principles in the whole of the art of teaching.”
W. W. Sawyer (2012). “Vision in Elementary Mathematics”, Courier Corporation
Dan Meyer really struck a chord with me at the MEI Conference in July 2021 – showing this quote from WW Sayer he said “There are no mistakes or misconceptions, just takes and conceptions.” That approach in our classes should certainly encourage an atmosphere where they are willing to share ideas and talk about mathematics.
Mathsbot
Don Steward
Standards Unit – A1
Smile activity
Jo Morgan
In the slideshow you can see Jonathan Hall’s Worded Expressions, as always with MathsBot resources we have lots of choices – for example, hide either the sentences or expressions. With the ability to generate new expressions we have an endless supply. This is ideal for self-study as well as for use in class. From Don Steward, we have translating English to algebra, expressions, see also translating English to algebra, relationships. Also included here is an activity, A1 from the Standards Unit on Interpreting algebraic expressions. This includes 4 card sets to match, ideal for looking at multiple representations, students match algebraic expressions, explanations in words, tables of numbers and areas of shapes. One of the goals of the activity is to help learners to translate between words, symbols, tables, and area representations of algebraic shapes. The Standards Unit resources can all be accessed without a login from the very clear to navigate University of Nottingham site linked to in the Standards Unit post.
Thinking about language and notation, and writing expressions from algebraic statements and vice versa there are some ideal activities for this, some suggestions….
One of Chris McGrane’s Starting Points MathsCurriculum Booklets – Algebra 1 from Phase 3 features some great activities for writing algebraic statements, featured on the slides you can see a Smile activity, and Jo Morgan’s lovely Introduction to Writing Algebraically – this is such a good idea, as Jo says in the resource description if they know how to do it with numbers, then they just do the same thing with the algebra.
Further excellent resources on this skill are available on Maths4Everyone.
OCR’s A Level Mathematics B (MEI) H640 includes a comprehension paper. Legacy papers include C4 with its Section B Comprehension Section. Steven Walker’s post on preparation for this paper includes links to the 2016 and 2018 papers which could be used as extension tasks for GCSE or early in AS classes. 2016, Photomontages applies trigonometry in a practical situation and 2018 ‘Rain stopped play’ looks at the various models used to estimate fair results in cricket.
A selection of Mathematical Halloween themed resources:
I do appreciate the dynamic Perton Maths Department, I have mentioned their various puzzle collections before – they are busy again, this time with Halloween puzzles!
Halloween relay – Chris Smith
From Chris Smith, try his great Halloween relay and note the whole set. I have used many of these very successfully – have fun whilst doing plenty of Maths!
From OCR Maths who are rather good at providing us with puzzles, try their fiendish number grid puzzle. OCR Maths regularly publish excellent puzzles many of which I have successfully used in class.
I like the way Nrich suggest related problems and strayed into Helen’s Conjecture here, one of many Nrich problems on Factors and Multiples similar to Helen’s Conjecture.
Checking popular curve examples on WolframAlha, a discovery – I had not realised that it was possible to, for example, create a randomly colored ghost curve! Refresh the page for different color ghosts!
Following last week’s post on Mathematics for Psychology, note also these Desmos activities for Biology by Sarah Denison from AMSP/ASE Biology. My Mathematics for Science page has been updated with these Biology Resources.
Desmos Activities – Surface area to volume ratio, Sarah Desnison
As with the Psychology resources the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme [AMSP]are supporting Biology teachers of Psychology in their teaching of the maths and statistics requirements of the psychology specifications and provide free CPD and resources. Maths for Teachers of A Level Biology is an event starting on 30th November. The course is free to attend, priority is given to teachers from state-funded schools and colleges in England and trainee biology teachers. Full eligibility details as well as a detailed study schedule can be found on the AMSP site.
Seeing Jonathan Hall’s latest Mathsbot resource, Place Value and counting to 100, reminded me of a task that has been on my list for some time – an update to a resource list for Primary Mathematics, which now has its own page on the top level menu. This is still work in progress; more resources will be added in the coming weeks.
On UK Exams and Assessments 2022, you can find updates from the exam boards including the formula sheets for GCSE Maths. For example, from AQA
Formula Sheets
Formula Sheets: Students will be given a formulae sheet in GCSE Maths and a revised equations sheet in GCSE Physics and GCSE Combined Science covering all the equations required in the subject content. We will make these sheets available to schools for use in teaching and so students can familiarise themselves with them. They will also be provided in the exams. AQA
AQA have stated that everything in sections 1 and 2 of the appendix on pages 43-44 of the specification will be provided for the examination in 2022; anything required from section 3 will be given in the question as normal. You can view sections 1, 2 and 3 here.
Edexcel:
For GCSE Maths, the exam support will be a separate formula sheet which gives students the formulae they may need to refer to in their assessment, appropriate to their tier of entry. This will be available as an additional insert on the day of the examination. The formulae sheet will shortly be accessible via the website and learners should then familiarise themselves with the formulae sheet ahead of the summer 2022 examinations. Edexcel
