A great resource on TES for when we get back to school is Laura Wilson’s Plans and Elevations, a PowerPoint of images showing plans and elevations of some famous buildings.
All photographs by David Young, taken in the attic space of the Casa Milà Barcelona a building designed by Antoni Gaudí, constructed between 1906 and 1910.
Back in March, I wrote, Number Resources, still very much a beginning and a work in progress, I have been reorganising pages. Making things easy to find is a never-ending task! Having written this blog since 2009, many older posts are still very useful – I want to make those easier to find.
Hence some new pages, the first created was Number under GCSE (14-16). This shows GCSE content and links to some favourite posts, also to sites that are particularly easy to search by topic. Further posts and resources and sites will be added, this is quite a project, but watch this space!
I have now added Algebra which brings some posts together such as:
Links to sites that are particularly easy to search by topic for Algebra are included, including some brilliant Underground Mathematics questions to challenge your GCSE students.
Mathematical Hooks padlet…https://t.co/L0ZnlniztU A reminder of the maths hooks padlet…ways in which to introduce topics, start discussions and develop curiosity
Note the playlist, Tasks on the Complete Maths YouTube CPD channel where Jonathan Hall is sharing his thoughts on some of these tasks. He recently shared this on Negative Combinations:
From Sparx Maths, have a look at their Transition Booklets, one for Year 6 to 7 and one for GCSE to A Level; these booklets are free whether you have Sparx Maths or not. The Year 6 to 7 booklet with over 130 questions is based on the Year 6 DFE/NCETM ‘ready to progress’ guidance from June 2020. The GCSE to A Level booklet uses over 120 questions taken from 11 key topics on Sparx Maths. Answers can be obtained by completing a form with your school details.
In my post on Proof I included some Geometrical proofs. We could treat this diagram as a goal free problem; what is the diagram showing you? This idea came from Colin Foster’s article –Trapezium Artist: Some thoughts on the formula for the area of a trapezium where he discusses a Year 8 lesson on area. Colin Foster states “The formula for the trapezium stood out as being the only one that wasn’t immediately ‘see-able’. With thought, those for the triangle, rectangle, parallelogram and kite could all be seen to be correct at a glance. That got us thinking about different ways of proving the formula. We were seeking something not only believable but striking enough as an image to stick in our minds. All our methods involved converting to simpler shapes”
Do students learn maths better with procedural tasks or with open ended conceptual tasks? This study found that conceptual tasks are better in the long term…#OneSlideSummary of interesting educational research papers day 5.
Looking at theBooks (free) page, for puzzle fans perhaps try Henry Ernest Dudeney’s puzzle collection.
Looking at the free Kindle offerings, these include Mind Hurdles: Mystery Number – a set of ‘number mysteries’, one or more of which would make a good lesson starter and Henry Ernest Dudeney’s – Amusements in Mathematics a puzzle collection (with solutions). The first set of puzzles will offer a trip down memory lane for those who remember money – pre-decimal! There are several categories of puzzles available.
And do make sure you have Colin Foster’s KS3 books in your collection.
Nrich will again publish a challenge a day throughout the UK summer break. Every weekday from 18 July to 2 September, a new interactive game or puzzle will appear on this Primary page and this Secondary page. Once students have tried the day’s challenge, they will be able to compare their approach to previously published students’ solutions.
Perhaps try some curve stitching on Transum. Also, on Transum, you will find School Holiday Maths Activities; this collection has many activities to encourage students to continue their learning during the holidays. These are categorised, and we have a lovely mixture of learning, puzzles, and games to make students think. There is a great deal of choice here. See also the full list of all fun maths activities.
To highlight just a few resources from this large collection, Algebra includes the lovely SolveMe mobiles puzzles.
Or, for a rather different approach, try Shuttle Mission Workshop from Math Playground, here students build and solve their own visual math puzzles. Play Shuttle Mission Pro first to practise.
Nrich features on many pages, including reading; Nrich has many excellent articles on the use of games in the classroom; hence a Reading page.
Math Playground – PEMDAS Exhibit
On Number, Math Playground, PEMDAS Exhibit provides great practice for order of operations. Touch an operation to form that part of the operation.
Following each puzzle, you can find a discussion on the puzzle. Have a look at this puzzle and discussion for example.
In response to this puzzle, you can see various solutions, including an Autograph file created by Rob Smith. Rob has this up to change both squares and you can move also move a point on the smaller square.
The collection includes from Cambridge PhD student Omar Wagih, ‘Guess the Correlation‘, a rather addictive game with a purpose – Omar Wagih is collecting the data on the guesses collected and using it to analyse how we perceive correlations in scatter plots. Select About to read the rules and further details.
The Underground Maths page includes several resources on puzzles and games.
