5 Maths Gems #103

Welcome to my 103^rd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Surds
I love teaching surds! Here's a nice surds task from Peter Drysdale‏ (@pwdrysdale). It's a multiplication table with lots of blanks to fill in.

2. Puzzles
If you're a fan of geometry puzzles, check out Ed Southall's Instagram page where he has collated all his puzzles in one place, and continues to share new puzzles on a regular basis.

And while you're on Instagram looking at his puzzles, don't forget to follow my Instagram account too!

3. Boss Maths Non-Examples
I first blogged about Boss Maths (@boss_maths) back in Gems 89. When using their site recently I noticed some features in their lessons that I'd not seen before. The examples and non-examples are really useful for clarifying definitions and concepts.

Here's an extract from their Circumference of a Circle lesson:

And another extract from their Recognising and using Fibonacci type sequences lesson:

4. Hooks
Julia Smith (@tessmaths) has been collecting mathematical hooks for lessons. You can find them in this padlet. Hooks are items of interest which might spark discussion or could be used to introduce a topic in the maths classroom. Some of them might work well for form time discussion too.

5. February Half Term Maths Challenges
Thanks to Lisa Baggaley (@charowen13) for sharing a link to the 2019 Mathematical Education on Merseyside Challenges (MEM). I first blogged about this competition back in Gems 37.

MEM has been running take-home competitions in February half term since the late 1970s. Together, these competitions attract about 2,000 entries annually, with Challenge aimed at Years 7 and 8, and Senior Challenge aimed at Years 9 and 10. A third competition, Open Challenge for students aged 18 and under, is organised by Liverpool Mathematical Society.

If you want your students to enter, you can find the questions and instructions here.

Update
On Wednesday 13th February there is a free DfE-funded maths conference in Northampton for 200 primary and secondary teachers. There will be a keynote from Andrew Jeffrey, and then secondary teachers will attend three workshops and a TeachMeet. The workshops are: Chris Reilly on Challenging Topics at GCSE, Peter Mattock on Mathematical Thinking and me on preparing Year 11s for GCSE exams. There are still a few secondary spaces available so book now if you want to come.

Finally, do check out the awesome maths videos and animations on the website www.etudes.ru. There's loads of cool stuff on this website. I particularly like the video on Reuleaux Traingles. Thanks to WTungsteno (@74WTungsteno) for sharing. Here's an extract from a video on Pi which would work well in a first lesson on circumference: