Number Loving

Jubilee? We’ve got it covered.

Laura Rees-Hughes — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:19:11 +0000

Next weekend marks the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and gives us an opportunity in class for some royal fun (!) I will be using these top trumps cards as a starter which feature familiar faces from the royal family and sums relating to the number 60.

I will then be getting my class to try a mystery. I have made three to pick from (see resource on the TES here) across a range of Mathematical topics and each relating to one of the events taking place during the celebration.

As a plenary I’ll be posing the question ‘how many ways can we make 60′ and students will share their examples on the window (see below). They will have to use the numbers between 1 and 10 and any operations they can think of, the most imaginative solution will win a suitably British prize! If you use any of these resources why not let us know how it goes @laurareeshughes and @numberloving. For some other great jubilee themed resources check out this collection on the TES…

Take a bet…

Laura Rees-Hughes — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:19:53 +0000

Clearly gambling is not something which we should be promoting in Maths, but allowing students the opportunity to gamble opens up the chance to discuss the moral, social and financial implications in a real way. When teaching probability as an end of unit project (in pairs) I ask students to create a game, this is an idea which I adapted from this resource on the TES. I usually start the lesson by giving an example of a game for them to think about – powerpoint here. Then they have to design their own and make sure the odds are in their favour, they have to work out the probability of winning and losing, think about pricing and prizes and from this work out their expected profit if 10 or 100 people play. This can be easily differentiated through outcome and I have done it with low ability year 7 up to top set year 9 by just adapting the success criteria.

Once they have had a lesson to design their game, make any resources and do all the maths you need to get your hands on some plastic money. Each team gets £10 (their games should cost between 0-£2 to play) and the students set up their games like a fair, they have the opportunity to go around playing one another’s games. Once ten people have played their game they should ‘shut down’ their stall. After this, get students to count their money and see whether they made the expected profit they calculated the previous lesson. You can then have a great discussion about why they didn’t make their expected profit (experiments differ from theory) and whether they still have their original £10 and how this relates to gambling in real life – e.g. the house always wins!

This is a fun project but also a great opportunity to assess and explore lots of elements of probability. If you like this idea you may also like this resource on the TES which is brilliant and includes several games for students to investigate before making their own.

Treasure Hunts

Sharon Derbyshire — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:37:57 +0000

Treasure hunt resources are very versatile, with great advantages such as pupil engagement, reduced photocopying, easy differentiation, and pair work.

There is a wide range of ready prepared and differentiated treasure hunts available to download for free on our resource site here. All you need to do is download, print the resource, laminate and slice. These cards are then stuck up around the learning area for pupils to hunt down.

Here is a screen shot of just two cards from a higher level GCSE treasure hunt. The amber cards represent the easier route, and the green would be the higher or more challenging route.

There are a number of ways to run a treasure hunt;

Classic

Post the cards around the room or outside or any space really! Pupils work in pairs and work either on the amber route or the green route. They can be given starting points or simply start on the card nearest to their seat. Pupils then answer the question at the bottom of the card, when they have the answer they then move around the room until they find the card with that answer on. The activity is over when a pair get back to the card they started on therefore have completed the route.

Follow Me

This is possible for the treasure hunts that do not include a diagram. Each pupil has a card and reads the question, the person with the answer states the answer and then reads the next question. Again this activity is complete when we return to the card you started with.

Card Sort

With the cards printed and laminated pupils work in groups to sort the cards into a loop. This is great for group discussion and I used it as part of a revision carousel.

Differentiation

The cards are easily differentiated with most having two levels of difficulty, you can add as many levels of difficulty you require for the class. In addition it is good to set a challenge for gifted pupils to create a treasure hunt for the rest of the class to complete as a plenary or starter activity.

Collect a Joke

Combine this idea with collect a joke by adding a word of the joke punch line to each answer, pupils collect the words as the go. This just adds an extra dimension.

We hope your class and yourself enjoy the ideas and if you have any more ideas we’ve not thought of we would love to hear them.

Dance Maths

Laura Rees-Hughes — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:31:28 +0000

Dancing and Maths may not seem like an obvious combination, perhaps because dancing is generally considered to be good fun. This idea came about as part of an open evening which was Disco themed but it has now become a regular activity in my lessons.

The idea centres around the fact that lots of maths questions have an answer between 1 and 99. To start you will need a class set of ‘dance mats’, I made mine using some non-slip fabric meant for swimming baths and some spray paint, alternatively you could use sugar paper and sticky-back plastic.

Each student is given a mat, you then flash questions up on the IWB, students left leg represents the tens and their right leg the units. They have to move so that their feet match the answer to the question e.g. if the answer were 52 they would have their left leg on ’5′ and their right leg on ’2′. The next question then appears and they jump to the next answer. Along with some music and a bit of momentum you get students dancing along to BIDMAS, volume, solving equations or any topic you can think of! See our resource site for some ready made powerpoints.

My students really enjoy this (particularly low ability on a Friday afternoon) and it really helps to engage the kinaesthetic learners, you may have a few students who initially don’t want to join in (until they see how much fun it is!) in which case I let them answer on mini-whiteboards instead.

If you try this out we would love to hear from you, tweet us @laurareeshughes or @numberloving

Maths Party!

Laura Rees-Hughes — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 13:15:47 +0000

Maths and party are not two words you often hear in the same sentence but party games provide us with some great ways to engage students in the classroom. Here are a few of my favourite ideas:

Pass the parcel:

A simple idea which is great for a starter. this works very much as the party game but each layer has a question selotaped to it, before students can unwrap their layer they have to answer the question! In the past I have asked each student to write a question on a slip of paper as a plenary, then I use these questions in the pass the parcel the following lesson. I have done this with GCSE groups too and used exam questions cut up from a past paper. Students to the left and right can peer mark the answer to check it is correct! I have my classroom organised into five tables so I make five ‘parcels’ so each table has one to pass around, but you could adapt this depending on how your room is set up. All you need is some music and a prize for the middle and away you go!

Musical Statues:

This requires the use of this powerpoint from our resource site www.numberloving.co.uk. You play the powerpoint and students have to make the angle with their arms when the music stops. Great starter or plenary for consolidating estimation of angles! You can easily change the music, currently you will be listening to some choice songs from my Year 8 class.

Balloon modelling:

Balloon modelling is an exciting venture for anyone, old or young, this powerpoint again from our resource site takes you through the steps needed to make a balloon dog. Students have to measure their balloon (bought cheaply from homebargains, be sure to leave a 10cm section at the end which is un-inflated) then work out and mark the fractions on (starting from the end which is tied), then they fold and twist. It really is simple and makes a great fun lesson when studying fractions of amounts, it could be adapted to work for percentages or ratio. You could also extend the idea and get students to investigate making some of their own models! The video below shows how to make the twists, if you have younger students you may want to do this for them:

Four corners

This is great for types of shapes or number types. In each corner of the room you have a picture of a shape or a number hung up. You call out a property such as ‘four vertices’ or ‘square number’ and students must go to the corner which fits that property. If students go to the wrong one they are ‘out’ and should sit down, you can make it progressively more challenging by having several conditions they have to meet.

Simon says

This is a classic which can be adapted for practising drawing shapes, you give an instruction – for example ‘simon says draw a horizontal line 4cm in length’ and students have to do it, you continue on in this way until they have constructed a shape, the catch is sometimes you give an instruction which does not start with ‘simon says’ in this case they should not follow it. Get ready for chaos!

Keep tuned as this week I will also be blogging about dance maths…

Joking around in Maths? Collect a Joke!

Sharon Derbyshire — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:34:51 +0000

The joy of laughter is not to be denied even in the learning environment. I like to think pupils are laughing with me when I crack my latest mathematical based jokes, even with comments like “Miss, that’s your worst one yet”, I know they enjoyed it really!

We have developed a few ideas of how jokes can be used in the classroom to motivate and engage learners, as well as creating a great atmosphere!

1) Collect a letter

This is a slight adjustment to a normal worksheet with each answer there is an accompanying letter and the next question.
Changing numbers to and from standard index form

Thanks to Mathsfaculty, this is where we first came across the idea, unfortunately this site seems to have disappeared.

2) Hunt a joke
This can be the easiest way to liven up a activity which at NumberLoving we call “bog standard worksheet” into a motivating and engaging activity.

Simply take the answers in order, to any worksheet and match them each with a word (if enough words, letters if not) on laminated cards that have been placed on the walls around the classroom. When pupils have completed their work and had it marked they can then move around the rooms collect the words or letters in the order of the answers to form the joke or secret message.

Check out this yellow simplifying surds worksheet and hunt cards. For the other two levels of difficulty, green and amber check out the resources on www.numberloving.co.uk.

3) Treasure hunt

You may have already seen our treasure hunt resources. This is a slight adaptation, in which with each treasure hunt card a word from the joke or a letter to punch line is added to each card.

For a healthy supply of those all important mathematics jokes check out this forum discussion on the TES as well as this previous post on maths jokes.

My favourite “What did the zero say to the eight?”

Punchline; “Nice belt”

Mathematic Fortune Tellers

Sharon Derbyshire — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:48:53 +0000

You may remember these fortune tellers, or cootie catchers as known in the USA, from your youth? In my day we used them to find out what your future held or who you would ‘obviously’ marry!

Well, Number Loving have introduced them into mathematics lessons and they are our new resources which have been added to the resource section of Number Loving.

Resources

On the right is an example of a fortune teller which is ready and free to download from our site. First you will notice the colours, as with all our resources these colours relate to levels of difficulty. Therefore differentiation is present from the start; green is the hardest, amber is medium and red the easiest.

Construction

Once printed pupils will need to fold along the grey lines and make to look like the picture above. Instructions on how to fold the fortune teller are available here.

Or watch this video

Playing the game

For those who have forget how to play check out this post.

Also available to download is a blank version here, as this is great to ask pupils to create their own to challenge their partners or even their teacher! Download the blank version from here. However, to see the whole collection check out www.numberloving.co.uk.

Why not make a big fortune teller with the whole class? Use masking tape to tape each square piece of paper together. Have a look at this video, but be warned you may wish to turn the sound down.

Crazy Cocktails – Ratio and Proportion gets a facelift!

Laura Rees-Hughes — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:25:59 +0000

Ratio and proportion is such a hands on topic it deserves more than a lesson on recipes for spag bol and pancakes. So why not try out some cocktails!

This has to be one of my favourite lessons, ideally ran over two sessions. In session one you discuss recipes and strategies for working out different quantities (example of Pomegranate Paradise is below), students then complete the four modelled examples on this sheet. In the next session students use the examples for inspiration and make up their own cocktail, they have to work out the cost of making 100 and the % profit (worksheet here). Then they get to make it and sample their hard work! You will need to borrow some measuring jugs from food tech and make a trip to home-bargains for some cheap ingredients.

My students loved this lesson and even stayed at break to make another one! There really is a lot of Maths involved, they have to work out proportions, convert measures, calculate cost, profit and then interpret scales and they certainly won’t be forgetting it in a hurry!

Bingo Maths is Jack Pot Joy!

Sharon Derbyshire — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:47:10 +0000

If you have not adapted the game of bingo to fit in with your curriculum then you are missing out!The concept is basic if pupils have the answer to the sum/problem/question they cross it out. Playing for a house, a line, or all four corners.

There are many resources available, my favourite is an adaptable excel version like this one Negative Numbers (apologies I don’t know the origin of my original version). Once you have inputted both questions and answers the excel file will populate the bingo cards and will generate the order of which the questions will be displayed.

The bingo cards generated are four by four and contain 16 answers so it’s not always suitable to play for a full house. Another great use is to provide pupils with a blank copy and ask them to generate the questions and answers. This is great for providing pupils with extra challenge and you have another bingo created and ready to go with another class. A number of great collections are available here and here on the TES resource site. These are all PowerPoint based and pupils select their numbers before the game, therefore no printing needed. Plenty of prepared bingo’s on www.numberloving.co.uk. Make it more interesting with bug bingo pens and visors!

An eggciting eggstravaganza of eggresources

Laura Rees-Hughes — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:19:10 +0000

In the run up to Easter it’s a good idea to have some fun activities up your sleeve, so here are some of Number Loving’s favourite Easter resources.

All children (and some adults) love a good Easter egg hunt, check out the treasure hunt activities on our resource site to inject a bit of hunting fun into your lessons next week. I have adapted this one on BIDMAS to make it a bit more ‘Eastery’ so get it stuck up around the playground and let the kids loose! (template here if you want it!)

There is also this great Easter themed trail shared by Phrankie on the TES, although it is aimed at KS2 it would be fine for low ability Year 7′s and easily adaptable for others too!

Get your students doing some origami and making these fantastic bunny boxes, they can be folded to fit an egg in the middle and have to be inflated by mouth at the end! A great fun activity for KS3.

Another nice origami activity is this bunny, the instructions are really clear in the video which makes it great to use in class!

If you want something a bit less hands-on then try some of these Easter themed worksheets from Ten Ticks. Another nice worksheet on combinations is this one from primaryresources.co.uk, this is easily extendible for higher ability students too.

If you are brave then you might risk making some Easter nests with the students (cooking required!) Give students this recipe for 30 cakes and get them to work out the required quantities for 5, then get them measuring and weighing and prepare for some chaos!

Any other nice Easter activities would be much appreciated so please send them our way!