5 Maths Gems #94

Welcome to my 94^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Resources Padlet
There's a huge number of maths resource websites available and it can be hard to keep track of them all. Thanks to Hannah (@missradders) for sharing a Padlet of resource websites which is well organised and really easy to use. There may be some websites here that you've not seen before so do explore. It's a good idea to make this your homepage at work for quick access, or if you're unable to do that then perhaps put a link on your desktop.

To see recommended resources for specific topics, check out my resource libraries.

2. Puzzles
If you're a fan of maths puzzles and have a Twitter account, I recommend following Catriona Shearer (@Cshearer41) who has been sharing lots of really lovely problems for you and your students. Here's an example:

"The square, circle and triangle are stacked inside a larger square. What’s the area of the circle?"

There are loads more delightfully challenging and beautifully hand-drawn problems like this on Catriona's Twitter feed.

3. A Level Resources
There has been a flurry of new A level resources lately. CrashMaths (@crashMATHS_CM) has published some really helpful resources including a proof worksheet and some practice exam papers. Also check out their ten 'AS Maths Key Skills Check' sheets which can be used to test your Year 13s on Year 12 content.

A level teachers might also be interested in this excellent Scheme of Work for A level Maths from the Oxfordshire Mathematics Community.

Stuart Price (@sxpmaths) has published a new website of A Level Maths Question Packs full of great sets of questions organised by topic.

Naikermaths (@naikermaths) has published AS Practice Papers that can be used for homeworks or internal tests.

Desmos.com (@Desmos) has released a new activity: Functions and Their Derivatives.

Don't forget that I've updated my A level resource libraries for Year 12 Pure, Year 13 Pure, Statistics and Mechanics.

4. Global Maths Textbooks
If you're interested in how maths is taught in other countries then you should follow @literallyjustq for fascinating tweets and blog posts. It's so interesting to peek into maths textbooks from all over the world. Here's an example of an exercise in a primary textbook from Timor-Leste:

And here are some fraction questions from a Grade 6 maths textbook from Kyrgyzstan:

And some order of operations practice from the UK in 1976:

Follow @literallyjustq for lots more like this.

5. Multiplication
Thanks to Ashley Booth (@MrBoothY6) for sharing a multiplication knowledge organiser which sets out the reasoning behind related calculations.

Ashley suggested using 'what else do I know? activities for students to explore related calculations.

Clare Sealy (@ClareSealy) suggested that the knowledge organiser could also be used as a matching exercise.

Updates
I am so pleased to announce some more exciting additions to my upcoming #latemaths event. The ThinkMaths team (Matt Parker, Katie Steckles and Zoe Griffiths) will be there, as well as members of the Chalkdust team. The wonderful Ben Sparks will be speaking, and we will be launching Ed Southall and Vincent Pantaloni's new book More Geometry Snacks. It's going to be fantastic. Read Ed's post for more on this, and book your ticket now!

In case you missed it, my recent blog posts were Summer Updates, in which I ran through all the new stuff you'll find on resourceaholic.com and Year 7 Maths Activities in which I featured some lovely activities that you could use in a first lesson, or any lesson, with Year 7.

Here are some other updates that you might have missed:

• How do you factorise harder quadratics? I've blogged about the history of the two most popular methods (inspection and grouping) on La Salle's website ahead of my #mathsconf17 workshop.
• MathsPad subscribers will have seen lots of great new resources in their September update, including a lovely nets of a cube interactive tool.
• Mark McCourt published the third instalment of his epic series of posts on Teaching for Mastery. It's a must read for maths teachers.
• If you are a primary teacher do check out the new Topics in Depth packs by Nikki Martin that have been published for Year 3, 4 and 5 maths topics. Also, don't forget to sign up for the upcoming Primary Maths Challenge!  
• If you're coming to #mathsconf17 and staying overnight on the Friday then lots of us are staying in the Premier Inn Birmingham New Street. I tweeted this back in August but you might have missed it. Watch this space for news on the location of pre-conference drinks. For more upcoming events, see my 2018/19 conferences page.

Don't forget you can subscribe to my blog posts by email or follow my Facebook page for regular updates.

I'll leave you with this awesome "Mathematicians for All, Equality, Unity..." poster, created by Kate Poirier‏(@realKatePoirier) and tweeted by Christopher Drupieski (@christopherdrup).