Perhaps try some pencil and paper games as an alternative to screens.
Pencil and Paper Games.com
The site Pencil and Paper Games.comincludes some topological and number games, all the games can be played with pencil and paper, though many of the games can be played online if you wish.
Daisy (NRICH) Play on paper or use the online version.
The winner is the player who shades the last petal.
……
Noughts and crosses or try Endless Noughts and crossesfrom Nrich
The classic Game – if you go first can you ensure that you win? Noughts and Crosses – Strategy Note also these games from Nrich, tryOnline, Fifteenand Jam – try these in the order given. What do you notice about the strategies for these games?
Square It (NRICH game) Also known as ‘Boxes‘
Players take it in turns to click on a dot on the grid – first player’s dots will be red and the second player’s (or computer’s) will be blue. The winner is the first to have four dots that can be joined by straight lines to form a square.
Note you can click ‘Full Screen Version’
Try playing Sprouts, another game where all you need is pencil and paper. See this article from Nrich ‘Sprouts Explained’
Perton Maths – Egg Challenge 1
Perton Maths Department are great for providing seasonal challenges and this Easter is no exception, see Challenges 1,2,3,4and5.
Nrich have just published new features for Primaryand Secondary. Both have numerous activities students can work on at home. The activities are categorised by age and within each collection you will find activities in various categories which are fully explained in the article for teachers.
If we look at Just Jottings for ages 11-14 we can see Cryptarithms, an activity I mentioned in a recent post, I like the idea here that students get away from the screen and just jot those thoughts down using pencil and paper. There are 6 such activities in this section.
Nrich – Making a Difference
There is so much here, do explore these brilliant collections – thank you Nrich.
A reminder of all the great resources on Jonathan Hall’s Mathsbot – there are so many activities which students can use whilst working at home; with answers provided for students to check, they are getting feedback as they work. A recent edition is the student version of Do Now. Students could try for example Differentiated Questions or a topic ladder of their choice.
Nrich is of course an outstanding source of resources. Yesterday morning I thoroughly enjoyed the web version of London Maths – thank you to Charlie Gilderdale for a great session. One of the resources we looked at was Cryptarithms, mathematical puzzles where the digits in a sum have been replaced by letters. This task has a carefully chosen collection of problems of increasing difficulty and it struck me as a good resource that students could work on from home – the problems could be printed off and then students can get away from the screen and work on paper.
From the Science Museum, Mathematics in our World which looks at how mathematics connects to so many aspects of our lives and see also this collection of mathematical objects. Seeing the Spirograph, a favourite childhood toy reminds me of the brilliant digital version, Inspirograph by Nathan Friend.Try altering the gears so that the fixed and rotating gear are the same size, or make one size a factor of the other, make the two sizes have a common factor, or not! Investigate. You can change the colours too and create a work of Art!
Inspirograph by Nathan Friend
For some beautiful images try the 3DXM Virtual Math Museum. Have a look at all those plane curves for example and note that you can select individual curves and change parameters…see this pdf for further details.
Have a look at the Google Art Projectwhich features Art museums from around the world. The project also has user-created galleries, which teachers can use to create themed presentations of artwork from different collections. Try a search on mathematics.
The Mathematics Department have written chapter booklets to accompany Dr Jamie Frost’s presentations. The booklets have been designed to be used by students to fill in whilst studying from the accompanying Dr Frost presentation. (These are a first edition which the staff say will be tweaked over the summer holidays.
EdExcel A-Level Pure and Applied chapter booklets now available on TES (links below), apologies we couldn’t share from OneNote. Will upload Further Maths tonight. As ever, thank you to @DrFrostMaths. We will refine over the summer, but in the meantime we hope they are useful!
The resources have uploaded to TES, see this TES search; alternatively this Twitter thread has a link to each set of resources on TES (you don’t have to be a Twitter user to access the link).
I must recommend the free samples from Bring On the Maths, the Core 3 activity – Logarithmic equations worked really well with my Year 13 class and next week I’ll use the C4 Binomial Expansion resource when we are talking about the validity of a given expansion. I have used the Trigonometric Ratios resource before – and will again; there are several other great resources in that list of samples – explore!
Free access is available to the complete set of these resources on the oldKangaroo Maths site. Log in with the user and password as above to access all the resources. This will give access to all the activities for students from Key Stage 2 right through to A Level – note that this being the old site, the resources are aligned to earlier schemes of learning but still so useful.
Distance Learning will be demanding for many children and parents, they need time to relax too, it’s certainly a chance to read more or perhaps get away from screens and listen to a story. For as long as schools are closed, Audible are providing stories which are free to stream on a desktop, laptop, phone or tablet. An extensive collection of stories, including titles across different languages is available. No accounts or passwords are needed. See Audible’s ‘How to Use Stories‘ and start listening; note the menu where children can select by age.
I have often mentioned White Rose Maths who have so many free high quality resources, see for example Secondary Schemes of Learning and Assessments for End of Block or End of Term. Check their Home Learning, the White Rose Maths Team has prepared a series of five maths lessons for each year group from Year 1-8. More will be added each week for the next few weeks. Every lesson comes with a short video showing clearly and simply how to help children to complete the activity successfully.
On CIMTthere are interactive tutorials for Years 7, 8 and 9.
CIMT Interactive Material – Year 9 Indices
Mathsbox is a subscription (excellent value) site but all the Quick Cover Lessons have been made available free on TES Resources. Each each lesson includes examples/methods with 30 to 60 questions – answers.
MEI are providing additional support during school/college closures; a package of free resources to support remote teaching is available.
The summer term includes work on consolidation for the year, note my post on Knowledge Oragnisers, particularly the collection from Nicola Whiston who has
started a collection of Knowledge Organisers which follow the White Rose Schemes of Learning, she is sharing the collection here, via Dropbox. These are really attractive and I think will appeal to students.
Play on paper or use the online version.
Try playing Sprouts, another game where all you need is pencil and paper. See this article from Nrich ‘Sprouts Explained’
I have often mentioned White Rose Maths who have so many free high quality resources, see for example Secondary 
