If you are searching for problems and activities for your Mathematics lesson or perhaps for homework where do you start?
For age 16-18, see in particular the A level resourcespage. Also, note this post on some of the excellent teaching resources provided by the examination boards.
See also the Rich Tasks and Questions pagesas well as the Revision Activities and Resources series of pages.
For UK age 14-16, resources for some of the topics new to the most recent GCSE specification such as Iterative Methods can be found here.
The following websites all have an excellent choice of resources:
Nrich – University of Cambridge
Nrich has extensive resources including problems, interactives and games. Full teachers’ notes are provided.The Resources for Teachers pagehas several useful links; note the curriculum mapping documents which suggest resources relating to the National Curriculum. There is a search by topic facility to find all the resources for a particular topic.
Open Middle – a wonderful cource of problems to make your students think.
CIMT– The Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching, from the University of Plymouth, an astonishing resource has free curriculum materials for all school-age students. For example if we look at the Year 7 Course Material pageas well as all the book chapters with their numerous worked examples and exercises there are also teachers’ resources including notes, slides, revision tests, activities and mental tests on each topic. The activities are varied and include investigative work.
From Transum, Maths Starter of the Day. Note that there is a complete index of starters including the topic of the starter. The Transum site is easy to navigate, there is a clear Topic Index for Teachers also, for students a Maths Map with numerous activities to support their learning. The example shown here is one of the Algebra Activities found on this page.
Transum – Algebra
Maths Problem Solvingfor problem solving resources;Leanne Shawhas categorised quality resources.
Standards Unit – a superb set of activities to really make your students think from the Improving Learning in Mathematics materials.
STEM Learninghosts hundreds of Mathematics resources in its eLibrary. (Resister here).
The Rich Tasks page lists many sites with excellent problems for students to try; I have used many of the AQA problems in class for example.
The Questions page has many very useful sources of questions and activities; see for example the Exemplification Examples and the assessment section of the Kangaroo Maths website.
On the subject of questions try giving your students a Mini Test! Low Stakes tests can really help students find out what they know, or don’t! See Low Stakes Testing in the Mathematics Classroom for more information, including a student survey on this.
Exercises & solutions on David Smith’s ‘The Maths Teacher’
David Smith’s The Maths Teacher site has a great collection of videos for both GCSE (age 14-16) and A Level (16-18). Transcripts are available for each lesson, also exercises with worked solutions. Many of the GCSE videos would also be useful for younger students. There are also videos and written solutions to some A Level papers.
Craig Barton’s mr barton maths.com. You will find a treasure trove here for teachers and students. Note in particular Craig’s Maths Topic Index Page. Resources are available for Students as well as Teachers.
From Steve Blades, see M4THS.com for age 14-18.This site has an extensive library of resources. A great feature of these resources is very efficient use of space so cutting copying costs. Keep scrolling down the page – there are a lot of resources!
Teachit Maths KS3 Percentages code breaker
Teachit Maths though a subscription site offers its entire collection of activities as pdfs free.
I have found many high quality resources here for all ages. Look at this activity on quadratic functions for example – this should really help understanding.
Here’s the diagram or snippet, what’s the question?
Maths Challenges
From UKMT, the UK Maths Challenges we have a wonderful library of problems; note the these past papers. where you will find questions and full solutions. Check also the Individual Challengespageswhere you will find details of the challenge and see sample materials. Checking the Junior Challenge for example you will see the following samples. Note the addition for 2015 of extended solutions. As well as a full solution which does not use the multiple choice answers further ideas are given for investigation. Further outstanding resources from UKMT include the Team Challenge resources and the UKMT Mathematics Challenge Skills Builders.
UKMT Challenges
The following sites all have extensive and varied collections:
Bingo from mathsbox
Mathsboxhas many high quality resources including Bingo games on a variety of topics. Note that this is now a subscription site but there are several samples available free and whilst this blog is about all the free resources out there this subscription looks like a bargain!
Don Steward
Don Stewardhas an extensive collection of activities to really make your students think and learn. Note the helpful topics menu on the right hand side of the page. The example shown above can be found under Algebra Misconceptions.
From justmaths.co.uk Fractional and Negative Indices (under Number)
JustMathshas many wonderful free resources, I particularly like the type of worksheet shown above as it is self-checking for students.
Jo Morgan’s Resourceaholic
Jo Morgan’s Resourceaholic is full of teaching ideas and includes a library of her recommendations. Note Jo’s Gems series where you will find a treasure trove of her finds.
Ed Southall’s Solve My Maths has another extensive library of teaching ideas and resources and don’t miss Ed’s wonderful mathematical Mr Men!
Danielle Bartram’s Miss B’s Resources
Danielle Bartram a great variety of high quality resources on herMiss B’s Resourcessite.
Miss Brookes Maths has many excellent resources all clearly categorised. Select the Teaching Resources tab.
Math is fun includes several examples on its pages. Checking the Data index, if we look at Stem and Leaf Plots for example there is a very clear explanation followed by a series of questions at the end.
Dynamic Maths – David Watkins
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.
I find these ideal for ‘Bell Work‘ as I can easily snip a screenshot and create a worksheet for students to complete as they enter the room. (I also create a PowerPoint or flipchart ahead of time with the questions displayed without and with answers)
Resources for Teachers from Craig Barton
NASA Mathematics Resources.,,,,,,
Bob’s Ratio Homework – R Barnard
Spot the mistake! A great way to get students thinking about mistakes and misconceptions and hence deepen their understanding of topics is to have them mark the work of others.
Mark McCourt’s Emaths
The above sites include many Statistics resources, if you are looking for Statistics lesson activities see also the post on Statistics resources.