5 Maths Gems #95

Welcome to my 95^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Non-Examples
Non-examples are a really good way of pre-empting common misconceptions and giving students unambiguous definitions and explanations. It's great that Jonathan Hall (@StudyMaths) - creator of mathsbot.com and formtimeideas.com - has launched another new website: nonexamples.com. Knowing Jonathan this will grow quickly and become a really useful teaching tool.

2. Rich Number Tasks
Thanks to Murat Tepe (@mappsandgrapps) for sharing a nice activity 'Different Forms of a Number' in which students start by finding multiple representations of one eighth.

Happily this led me to Murat's blog 'Puzzles and Figures' which is full of great tasks and problems.

3. Maths4Everyone
I blogged about David Morse's resources earlier this year. In the last couple of weeks he's shared some new angles resources to his extensive collection on TES. These sets of progressively difficult questions for angles that form a straight line and angles around a point are very well written for drawing out misconceptions. For each angle fact there are three sheets: first steps, strengthen and extend. Anyone who has attended my Topics in Depth session on angles will have heard me speak about how often these concepts are rushed through in Year 7. We really need to slow down and explore them properly, and these resources will help us do that.

David also shared some new maths vocabulary exercises which he suggests using for five to ten minutes each week to help improve students’ vocabulary and to help them learn abbreviations, prefixes, lesser known units and Greek letters. These word wheels might work well in tutor time.

4. Product of Primes
Thanks to Dan Lewis (@4301maths) for sharing a nice set of questions related to prime factorisation (see his tweet for the full set). This is why Twitter is such a helpful place for maths teachers.

5. Hegarty Maths 
Here are a couple of ideas for schools using Hegarty Maths.

Ormiston Horizon Maths (@OHA_maths) shared a video of a student's work in a Hegarty Maths booklet. This is a great way of ensuring that students use Hegarty Maths correctly - by watching the video, making notes, doing full workings for each question in the task and marking their own work. Later Nicola Whiston (@whisto_maths) kindly shared the booklet so that other schools can use it too.

Jessica Bramwell‏ (@MrsJBramwell) shared her school's 'Hegarty Handshake' board which is a wonderful way of praising students for their hard work on Hegarty Maths.

If you use Hegarty Maths but you're not on Twitter then do have a quick look at Colin Hegarty's (@hegartymaths) Twitter feed because he often shares examples of good practice.

Update

• My latest post 'Vectors for Enlargement' was the first in a new series focusing on methods. Do check it out if you missed it - I had some good feedback from teachers trying this method for the first time last week.
• I also wrote a post 'Factorising Trickier Quadratics' that was published on La Salle's blog. I can't wait to share loads of great stuff on quadratics at #mathsconf17 in two weeks. I have loads of interesting things to talk about in my workshop, and I'll be bringing along some old textbooks to the Tweet Up for people to have a look at.
• I also had a post published on Teachwire this week about the Primary Maths Challenge. If you are a primary teacher or know a primary teacher please have a look at this brilliant maths competition for children in Year 5 and 6.
• Speaking of competitions, do check out the following challenges for your students. They all start in October so you'll have to move quickly if you want to get involved:
• Puzzle of the Week
• Ritangle from MEI
• The National Cipher Challenge

• Look out for my subject knowledge articles and accompanying resources in two upcoming editions of Teach Secondary magazine (it's pretty cheap to subscribe). I'm really excited about these articles.
• Tickets for my LateMaths event are selling really well. I've now got over 70 people coming for a unique maths night out in London on 27th October. Book quickly before it sells out!
• Tickets go on sale this week for the Habs Girls Teaching and Learning Conference 2019 which I'll be speaking at on 23rd March. 
• Tickets are already available for an ATM/MA event that Ed Southall and I are speaking at in London on Saturday 19th January.
• I bought a fascinating book from the 1950s about maths education - see my thread for some interesting extracts. 
• I'm excited about my new maths earrings (I went for the pairs of compasses - only £5 and made by a maths teacher!). You can buy these from Caracat Designs.

I'll leave you with this composite functions meme shared by Dylan Agnew (@DylanAgnew3) which made me chuckle.  Have a great week!