Now that Autumn term is done or nearly for most in the UK, I just wanted to mention Christmas crackers, read all the way to the end!
I wouldn’t have thought, all those years ago as a child, when first pulling crackers with my family at the Christmas table that I would be putting some of their contents to excellent use as a Maths teacher. Often their contents is as quickly discarded as the ‘left over crackers’ and yet many of them have use in the classroom. So encourage your friends and family to save those crackers contents for you and here’s how I put some of the most common contents to good use…
The Screwdriver and pencils
Yes these are both keepers, absolutely perfect for construction lessons. The screwdriver is perfect for fixing and tightening the legs on a pair of compasses (put one in each classroom set of compasses)! Constant issue when completing constructions with pupils, they need to ensure not only that they have a sharp pencil that is kissing the point of the compass but also that the legs of the compass are tight.
The Tape Measure Lots of uses for the tape measure such as estimating and measuring objects within or outside the classroom. One of my favourite uses is for pupil loci, as described in our post Teaching Loci.
The Plastic Jumping Frog– Data collection activities with the following question to investigate; “How far will the frog jump?”.
The Magic Calculator Sometimes called the mystery calculation. I’ve collected over 16 of these over the years and can now use in algebra lessons! At first I just put them in my end of term puzzle box.Check out our post here for more on a class puzzle box. Your best ever investment; A puzzle box
Check out Maths Ed Idea’s blog here explaining the binary process behind some of these calculators.
The Bad Jokes
I am always looking for a good bad joke tell to my students or to include in my worksheet resources such as my collect a joke resource like this Christmas themed Collect a Joke worksheet which pupils need to be able to find the nth term of linear sequences and as a result collect the punchline to the joke; “Why isn’t every man in a red suit with a beard Father Christmas”? Check this resource out here Christmas Maths Sequences Collect a Joke Worksheet Activity.
The jokes within the Christmas crackers, although not often with a mathematical edge (these are my favourite kind of jokes), they are most often family friendly jokes that can be used in the classroom. Check out my previous post Joking around in Maths? Collect a Joke! in which I describe these resources and their uses in more detail.
The Playing Cards So many uses from tricks such as these described in our post Magic Maths or the classic probability “higher of lower”, too many to list but grab those cards and keep them.
Thank you for reading this far! Here is a little Christmas Cracker for you, follow this link below for a free download of our most popular revision foldable usually £3…this link will be free just today, that is until midnight tonight Friday the 18th so download and save (checkout of free resources doesn’t require bank details)!
A quick blog to let our readers know we have been updating some of our old free resources which you may (or not) have noticed were missing since we launched the new site. Check out our Free Resources page regular to keep up to date on all available freebies. Today Averages and Range quick starter worksheet has been updated and uploaded today.
Averages and Range quick starter, really is an average and quick starter on lists of data. We use this as a quick starter settler before moving onto finding the averages and range from frequency tables. Download this quick free resource using the link below or visit our store for both free and premium resources.
Looking for ways for pupils to remember the different methods? Maybe you use the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle” or you might like this video below “Its not hard (Averages song)” but be warned it is a bit outdated and like me you might not like the line or portrayal of the ‘perfect wife’. A quick youtube search “average song math” brings a lot of results.
If you are moving on to continuous data check out these resources available in our store
Following the success of our Valentine’s picto-puzzles we’ve put together a set of Hauntingly Halloween picture puzzles.
Great as a quick starter and application of the order of operations. Easy to display or print.
Pupils should assume all pictures take integer values and if two pictures are together (pumpkin wearing the witches hat for example) within a picture their values have been added.
How will you celebrate Pi day in your classroom? Pi day lands on a Saturday this year 2020 but we plan to celebrate a day early on Friday March 13th. Here are some ideas including a free download from NumberLoving.
Beauty of Pi Use this video below to demonstrate the beauty of Pi or download the app by Fraser McKay and Chris Smith from their PiWire site here to explore Pi and other numbers visually.
One Million Digits of Pi Display as a list here or a rap video by AsapScience for just the first 100 digits in the video below.
Pi Day Dingbats These are great for form time; say what you see! Download this PowerPoint presentation shared by Lloyd here.
Pi Day Puzzle Free Download Two different puzzle styles, one is a straight forward pi-doku based on Sudoku but only using the digits 314 and the second is a reasoning puzzle similar to GCSE area/percentage question with no dimensions.
Check out our Pi Day bundle by clicking the link below, this includes resources suitable up to Higher GCSE Maths in the mystery which involves the equations of a circle.
Check out our previous blog post Pi-Day Resources for more ideas to celebrate the day!!
A quick blog to share free set of pie chart resources, require no-prep printable downloads, that we produced when NumberLoving joined up with LittleStreams in collaboration.
The worksheets produced by Littlestreams help introduce how to calculate angles in order to construct Pie Charts. Once pupils are able to construct, you can move them into completing the NumberLoving Treasure Hunt. This requires pupils to interpret pie charts; finding amounts from pie chart sectors and includes questions like those included in Higher EdExcel and AQA GCSE 9-1 Maths papers.
The two resources can be downloaded for free using the links below;
