20 July 2014

Resources, resources, resources...

Inequalities activity - Project Maths
I've been working really hard on my resource libraries lately, so I'm pleased to say I'm finally ready to share them! They can be accessed through the tabs at the top of the page.

This is where I've put all my resource recommendations for you to browse when you're planning lessons. The A' level pages will probably be the most helpful as it can be hard to find good resources for Key Stage 5. 

My recommendations are by no means exhaustive - there's loads of good resources I haven't discovered yet (the internet is too big, I can't keep up with it!). But I will update my listings whenever I come across something particularly good. To clarify what I mean by 'good' - my recommendations include well-designed activities, rich tasks and worksheets for topics where I think it can be hard to find suitable practice questions. 

My Top 3 Websites
The resources I've recommended are all free and come from a wide range of sources.  Here's my current favourite websites, in no particular order.
  1. Median by Don Steward is absolutely brilliant - it's widely considered one of the best sources of rich mathematical tasks for secondary school pupils.  The activities include this Roof Truss task (trigonometry) and Bee Aware (scatter graphs) - there are hundreds more and they're all awesome.  
  2. MathsPad has plenty of excellent free resources. Subscription (£3 per month) gives access to their full range. I love the way their resources are designed, including their interactive activities which are all very engaging and easy to use. Example resources include this lovely Square and Cube Numbers Puzzle, and for older pupils I really like Is it Rational?. 
  3. Teachit Maths has large, well-organised resource libraries.  Free registration gives access to resources in pdf form, which is fine for all their printable activities and worksheets. You'll need a subscription (£25 per year) if you also want to access PowerPoints, interactive activities, teaching tools etc. Worksheets are well-designed, engaging and include solutions. Examples of their resources include this Mental Powers Code Breaker and this Transforming Graphs card sort activity, which I have used successfully with both my Year 11s and Year 12s.
Special mention to The Chalk Face and Mathematics Assessment Project - both of these websites are full of excellent ideas. I also get a lot of resources from TES. One of my favourite TES contributors is SRWhitehouse who creates excellent A level activities. For a full (and ever-expanding) list of recommended resource websites, see my links page.

Factor Trees - Median Don Steward

My Blog
Now I've finished creating my resource libraries, I can get back to focussing on my blog. Here's some of the highlights so far...

For a full list of my blog posts see the blog archive.  Not bad going for 3 months!

'Find the Coordinates' task by Susan Wall


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