Only a matter of time till the next exam series and I decided to build in mini-revision to each lesson between now and then. Hence the birth of Number Loving’s differentiated exam warm up resources for both Higher and Foundation students.
***Please note these do not reflect the new 9-1 curriculum!! ***
Each set has five warm ups designed to be used in each lesson for that week. As always these are differentiated by colour indicated by the post-it notes; red (easiest), amber (medium), and green (more difficult). The topics remain the same, for example on the foundation set 1, day 1 shown above you will see the green question about missing angles in isosceles triangles. This bottom left hand question is always about isosceles triangles in set 1.
Display one on the board at the beginning of each lesson, giving pupils a small copy to complete as soon as they arrive to class.
I hope you find these resources useful in the lead up to exams!
Tick or Trash is an idea shared by Lisa-Marie Doyle, a colleague I worked with in Knowsley, now working in Crewe. From Lisa’s idea NumberLoving have produced a number of tick or trash worksheets, ready for free download.
With the questions placed in the middle they’ve been answered by two characters, one is correct and one is wrong. Pupils must decide for each whose answer to tick and whose to trash. These are ideal for quick starter, plenary or a topic review. Also don’t miss the great opportunity to engage pupils in spotting and describing the mistake or discussing common misconceptions.
Summer is here and now we can get stuck into those projects requiring a little more time. Here we have listed a wide range of projects that will keep you busy over the summer holidays.
Get Making
Maths Dance Mats
Make a class set for use on any topic with numerical answers. Check out our post “Dance Maths” for details on making the mats and resources to use with the mats are also available.
Instant Pie Charts
These have so many uses from the teaching of pie charts itself to its use in group tasks to rate participation rates of individuals, to measuring a pupils understanding. Easily made using four different colours of paper, and slotted together. Check out our post “Instant Graphs” for further details on making and using the pie chart wheels, as well as free resources to make and use with the wheels.
How do you Measure Up? Display
Make or update your height measuring display in your classroom, and why not post around the school in communal areas and even the staff room. Update with winners from the Olympics, or today’s favourite celebrities.
Check out our post “Pimp your classroom” for our free tape measure and other ideas to jazz up your classroom for September.
Top Trumps
Print and laminate a few sets of top trumps, a wide range is available on our TES shop. Each set is differentiated red (easy), amber and green. We have found they last longer if cut out and then laminated. Well worth it!
Check out our post “Maths Top Trumps & Other Games”, with details of how pupils can play the game and links to all top trump resources.
Download
Tarsia Software
Tarsia jigsaw and dominoes software is great and as many colleagues have shared their jigsaws on the TES resource site or here on Mr Barton’s site, if you haven’t yet made use of it now is the time!
Free web-based graphing software and much much more. Download to your desktop now here, offline installation also available.
Prezi Desktop
The zooming presentation software. Check out our post “Get onto Prezi.com. Present & Collaborate”, with links to some of our own presentations. Ideal software for wowing everyone at the September inset day!
Sign up for
Wallwisher
Wallwisher can be used as your very own internet based notice board, use effectively with class investigations. As pupils complete investigations they post their findings onto the wall. Sign up for this free posting wall here. Check out our post “Computer room lessons sorted- no mymaths required” for more online tools we recommend.
NRich Postcards
Nrich offer a service to provide postcards for free, each postcard includes a puzzle to solve, just sign up here stating how many of each you would like to receive. These are great for leaving in communal areas around the school, or use as praise postcards home. BP trading game
Access and download the free BP educational resource, game is available at two levels of difficulty. Pupils trade in oil, making decisions based on news updates. Check out our post “BP Trading Game- Enterprise/STEM/Maths”, here you will find our adapted resources to use with the game.
Buy:
Hama beads
These can be bought from most toy stores, we found Ikea’s to be a bargain at £5 see here. Check out our post “Hama Beads & Symmetry”, where we use these beads to create symmetrical patterns. Use as an end of topic activity or great for open evenings.
Finger Puppets
Another investment from Ikea, a pack of 10 for £4, check out here. Check out our post “Puppets go the distance with speed & time” , here we describe using the puppets to create stories to match a given distance/time graph.
Rulers (& pencils)
Whilst at Ikea take advantage of their free rulers and grab yourself a set. Check out our post “Teaching Loci”, here we describe guiding pupils under given rules of loci and a paper ruler to create locus of points.
Window crayons
We love using our windows for displays, puzzles, assessment for learning and found window crayons to be the best tools for the job. Check out our post “Who wants clean windows” for further details, get creative!
Rewards
Avoid sweet treats and instead reward pupils with mathematical based puzzle such as these Rubik cube key rings. Check out our post “On our best Behaviour” for other ideas for rewards.
Geek glasses
Essential for when you promote pupils to be experts, either they finish and become markers or are already designated as examiners with a given mark scheme (or self created markscheme). I use cinema 3D glasses with the lenses popped out, also great for control pupil movement in class when running a treasure hunt with a lively group. Pupils can only be out of their seat if they have the glasses on, limiting movement as each group only have one pair of glasses.
Clock for classroom
Every classroom needs one, a mathematical clock like this equation clock. There are also a number of variations available. Check out our post “Equation clocks and more”.
Post It Notes
Well worth the investment, reasonably priced from most stationary stores. Check out our post “Post-it Addict” jam packed of different uses for post-it notes in lessons!
For more ideas check out our posts on Outdoor Learning and see if these fit into your department calendar.
Have a great summer! Get in touch @numberloving and check out our free and premium resources in our NumberLoving Store.
Thanks to @steelemaths @ThisisLiamM, @InteractMaths, @jonsmcest and @jlc1602 for kindly sharing some pictures of their students using our ideas and resources. Number Loving out and about…
Thank you to everyone who’s tried our ideas, if you have any pictures we would love to see them, tweet us @numberloving. Keep posted as we’ll shortly be blogging about some projects to keep you busy this summer! Get in touch @numberloving and check out our free and premium resources in our NumberLoving Store.
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 in our store, chheck out this free Interpreting Pie Charts Treasure Hunt download. 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. Get in touch @numberloving and check out our free and premium resources in our NumberLoving Store.
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!
Balloon modelling:
Balloon modelling is an exciting venture for anyone, old or young, this PowerPoint “Welcome to the fun fair!!” 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 4 cm 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… Get in touch @numberloving and check out our free and premium resources in our NumberLoving Store.
Get in touch @numberloving and check out our free and premium resources in our 
