Nov 11 2012

Bingo!

I first came across Mathsbox.org.uk when looking at some TES resources (TES requires registration but all resources are free). Games of Bingo have been a great success this year with my Year 8 class and also my Year 11 students. Each time the students have been highly motivated and asked if they could continue playing to try and achieve ‘Full House’. With Year 8 we used Bingo games for practising directed numbers and substitution in algebra; with Year 11 a Bingo game provided a great way to revise completing the square. Mathsbox is now a subscription site (good value in my opinion) but there are free samples to try including a bingo game on solving linear equations. I like the Settlers, activities which could be given to a class immediately they enter the room for a lesson, giving a calm and productive start to a lesson. (See also ‘Bell Work‘).

For a collection of online Bingo games try these on MathsStarters.net.

There are many free Bingo resources on TES; note how the search can be narrowed by Key Stage. We could even play Bingo with our older students! some differentiation revision perhaps or Composite Functions? Note that this resource does not require separate Bingo cards, students are asked to select from choices given on the first slide. Some of the TES resources as well as being excellent in their own right provide you with a template for creating your own resources. Try Damian Watson’s Expanding Double Brackets for example – you could easily alter the PowerPoints and the Excel / Word files of Bingo cards. Another set of 10 bingo games comes from Anthony Biggs.

Year 8 – after playing Bingo using the Mathsbox Bingo Resources:
‘It’s great fun, everyone enjoys it. In order to win we have to do the Maths and since everyone wants to win we do lots and lots of exercises – a fun way of learning!’

‘The bingo is a great idea as it is fun and good for the class and still teaches and helps the students learn.’

‘This really helps me learn about positive and negative numbers.’

‘I like bingo as it is fun. It helps with maths as it allows you to learn to work out sums quickly and it is hands on and interactive It also adds the competitive edge to maths.’

‘I like this because it allows you to relax and have fun whilst being educated’.

Oct 21 2012

Some resources used in my classes….

Below I have given details of some resources I am currently using with my classes or have recommend to my students so they can explore examples further themselves.

Year 12 (age 16-17)
I want to talk about quadratic inequalities this week so I thought I’d use the Desmos graphing calculator to draw some pictures! Click on the image for the Desmos page and select ‘projector ‘ mode for display on the interactive whiteboard. Last week a student in this class asked where she could find some additional resources on polynomial division.
Note: I use the Desmos calculator so much I have decided it deserves a page of its own here (under Resources).

Year 13 (age 17-18)
Some students in a Further Maths class asked for some Polar coordinates resources to support their studies – so a post for them on my blog for students – these resources would also work well on the interactive whiteboard for use in class. As regular readers know I am a great fan of WolframAlpha and use it with all my classes (WolframAlpha now have a paid for service but it is still completely free to use to check answers for an unlimited number of queries, the free use limits step by step solutions to 3 a day). One of this class showed me that he has the WolframAlpha app on his phone.

Year 11 (age 15-16)

My Year 11 group are studying the AQA Level 2 Certificate in Further Mathematics (a course I am very much enjoying teaching) as well as completing their GCSE course this year. We have been studying calculus and I have found the Desmos graphing calculator very useful to illustrate problems we have been solving. This class have mock examinations coming up and I wanted to recommend some additional resources for them (we have various texts and the AQA support is excellent but the more the better and there is currently no textbook for the course); one site with some very useful resources for some parts of the course such as introductory Calculus is David Smith’s ‘The Maths Teacher.’

Year 8 (age 12-13)

I have a Year 8 class this year, none of whom I have taught before, we have been looking at surface area and volume. Math Open Ref has a rather nice animation which helps when looking at the surface area of a cylinder. (More on John Page’s Math Open Ref). I will also use this site when we look at constructions soon. Most had not seen WolframAlpha before so were quite impressed at how easy it is to check working! There are slideshows available for students showing the syntax for a selection of examples on my blog for students.

Oct 14 2012

Negative Numbers – Resources

Sometimes resources for younger students can be useful for lower secondary age students, see for example Mark Robinson’s Numberlines from the old Ambleside Primary School site which includes an option to display a number line from -5 to 5.

For another excellent number line resource see J Barrett’s Numberline Jump Maker on ictgames.com. I often recommend that students sketch a number line to help with addition and subtraction problems and very clear resources like these can really help. Teacher Resources on Line includes a Big Number Line under Basic Materials for display on a classroom wall

Games can be an excellent way to practise with negative numbers see for example games such as Connect 3 from Nrich and Tic Tac Go, a Wisweb applet.

Further resources include exercises from Trinity School in Nottingham (under Number) and Interactive Resources from CIMT (see unit 3, 3.3 on Negative Numbers and Unit 15, 15.1 and 15.2 for operations with negative numbers in the tutorials section).

There are many excellent resources on TES, the resource collections includes a section on Topic Specials which includes 10 of my favourite resources on Negative Numbers.

Aug 11 2012

NASA Mathematics Resources

With Curiosity Rover very much in the news this week, it seems a good time to highlight the educational resources available from NASA. Space Math @ NASA introduces students to the use of mathematics in todays scientific discoveries. The site includes Mathematics in the news – a look at the Mathematics involved in NASA press releases together with resources.

Note the Problem Books and Problem Archives which contain an extensive collection of problems. Several booklets are also available, see for example Exploring Space Math. Booklets include introductory pages including a table showing the topics covered by each activity. Why not use some solar wind magnetism data when teaching directed numbers or use solar flares when looking at equations and substitution?

Aug 5 2012

Dynamic Maths Worksheets

David Watkins has provided an extensive, easily searchable collection of Excel Mathematics worksheets on dynamicmaths.co.uk. As you can see from the above image (his Algebra-01 sheet on simplifying linear expressions), these worksheets can be customised to suit a particular class. As well as a class activity, these could make excellent starters or plenaries, I think they would also be useful for student self-study / revision.

For another excellent collection of spreadsheets investigate the resources on Mike Hadden’s MathsFiles site.