Resourceaholic: 5 Maths Gems #66

13 November 2016

5 Maths Gems #66

Welcome to my 66^th update from the world of Maths EduTwitter. This is where I share some of the latest ideas and resources for teaching maths.

November is always one of the hardest months for teachers. I'm drowning in workload at the moment and I bet many of you are too. It's relentless. At times like this I'm grateful for the Twitter community and my lovely colleagues for their ongoing support and encouragement. I plan to write a blog post soon with some thoughts and ideas on workload. In the meantime, here are five slices of mathematical loveliness to cheer us up...

1. 3Blue1Brown
Thanks to ‏@johngreen for sharing YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown. I'll be using their Vectors video when I teach this topic in C4 later this year.

If you teach logs then you might be interested in their video 'Triangle of Power'.

2. Classroom Display

Thanks to Clarissa Grandi (@c0mplexnumber) for sharing this beautiful classroom display 'The Faces Behind the Formulae' which she made for an A level classroom.

I've added it to my displays page.

3. Pinpoint Learning

Last year I featured Pinpoint Learning in Gems 45. It's a good time to mention this website again because most schools run mock GCSE exams in November or December. Pinpointlearning.co.uk provides students with personalised question booklets based on exam results. There's a sample booklet here. You (or your students) simply upload mock marks by question and the website automatically produces individual booklets featuring questions on the topics that students need to work on. I'm told that students love receiving their personalised booklets! I hope to try it out with my Year 11s next month.

Edexcel and AQA mock QLA sheets are on the website and you can currently upload results for all three mock papers for free during a one month trial. If you subscribe during the trial period then you get an annual subscription for £300.

Follow @pinpntlearning for updates.

4. SMILE
I'm teaching an interesting Year 7 class this year. Having not taught Year 7 for a number of years, I'm taking a fresh look at resources and approaches. I recently rediscovered SMILE worksheets. Here are a couple of examples:

Powers of Ten Flags

Coordinate Messages

Also, SMILE cards are available through STEM Learning - these are pretty old now so the quality of the copies vary. I remember learning maths from SMILE cards when I was in Year 7. Thanks to Martin Colley for arranging the cards by topic here.

5. Pythagoras with Blokus

I love this stop motion video from ‏@JoelBSperanza.

If you want to see more of Joel's stop motion videos or find out how to make your own, check out his blog post Stop-Motion Education.

Update

La Salle have announced some more dates for their conferences (including Wales and Scotland for the first time). I've added these to my conference listings and will try to attend as many as possible.

In case you missed it, my most recent post was the third in my series '5 Websites You Should You Know'. It featured Jonathan Hall's websites MathsBot.com, Flashmaths.co.uk and Formtimeideas.com.

I've also updated my recent post about Corbettmaths.com. Since writing it I discovered how good his textbook exercises are! I've found them so helpful for teaching Year 7 this week.