19 July 2020

5 Maths Gems #132

Welcome to my 132nd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Primary Maths Guidance
The Department for Education recently released a set of Mathematics Guidance documents for the Key Stage 1 and 2 national curriculum. The team of experts behind this really know their stuff, so it's high quality material. Both primary teachers and secondary maths teachers should familiarise themselves with the content, which includes teaching guidance, representations, language structures and example assessment questions. 
Helpfully, the DfE has also released a set of accompanying videos. I expect that these excellent videos will be used in a lot of in-school primary CPD in the new academic year.

   


2. Famous Mathematicians Display
George Stone (@DrStoneMaths) shared a new Famous Mathematicians Display, which is based on ⁦‪@MrYoungMaths‬⁩'s version from TES. It now features twenty-eight mathematicians from past to present, including more female and BAME mathematicians.  


I have added this to my displays page which features loads of excellent displays for maths departments.

3. A Level
Thank you to Susan Whitehouse (@Whitehughes) for pointing me towards the new website mathematico.org. This might be a site to watch for A-level resources in future. It's still being populated at the moment but do take a look at what's already on there.

Susan Whitehouse has also updated her folders of A level resources on Google Drive, removing references to old specification modules, adding in a few new resources, deleting duplicate resources and tidying up. I have used Susan's resources in my A level teaching since my NQT year. If you teach A level and don't know Susan's resources, do check them out.
4. Mean
I'd never thought about how to create a visualisation of the mean until I read Ed Southall's book Yes, But Why?. I think this is a particularly powerful visualisation, so it was good to see a very clear animated version of it created by Tomas Alley (@MrAlleyMaths).

       
Check out @MrAlleyMaths's Twitter feed for more visualisations and resources.

5. New Tasks
Miss Konstantine (@giftedHKO) has produced some lovely resources recently - check out her blog mathshko.com to see what she's been up to. 

Examples of her work include this task on area and perimeter:
and this task on metric measures:
and this one on factors:

Update
This term was incredibly challenging for many of us, so it's a huge relief that the holidays are now here. I'm so happy to have a break from computer screens and endless online meetings, as I'm sure many of you are too. I also now have only two days left homeschooling my daughters - it has been both a joy and a challenge. 

I definitely have a lot more work to do in the holidays than I've ever had before - as school timetabler, it seems that my to do list is never ending. But I feel excited about September already. I love meeting new classes and welcoming new Year 7s. But before all that excitement, time for a rest. My husband - who has been working in heavy duty PPE since March - has two weeks off from his hospital in early August. So my family is off to Center Parcs, and I can't wait - I booked it back in January so am very pleased that this holiday is still able to go ahead.

Here are a few things you might have missed in recent weeks:
  • I wrote a post 'Catching Up?' which I hope provides some reassurance to teachers, as well as lots of practical advice. In this post I mentioned the Power Maths Practice Books from White Rose - since then I've bought these for my daughters and found them to be brilliant. They're only £1.99 each and are excellent maths workbooks for primary children.
  • Teachers who are already planning their lessons for September might find my post Year 7 Maths Activities helpful as it contains lots of tasks that might be suitable in the first week when you are getting to know your class.
  • @HelenHindle1 ran a workshop on mixed attainment maths teaching which you can watch here.
  • @DrStoneMaths wrote a great post 'The limit does not exist' which is about teaching differentiation from first principles at A level.
  • @MrDraperMaths wrote a post 'Applied Pythagoras' sharing some brilliant Pythagoras questions.
  • @InformalTeacher wrote a Haiku for every workshop at #mathsconf23! I also enjoyed his poem 'Twas the day before summer'.
  • The NCTEM is getting a new website and it's worth reading Richard Perring's (@LearningMaths) thread which features lots of CPD and resources that are worth downloading before they disappear.
  • This weekend there's been a renewed interest in the Is this Prime? game by @christianp which I have loved for many years - it was the winner of one of my 2016 Gem Awards. People who are new to Twitter or new to maths teaching might find it helpful to read back through each of my Gem Awards posts to see some of the highlights of the resources and ideas shared in my previous posts that they may have missed.
  • Finally, thank to @dhabecker for sharing this multiplication game:



 Enjoy your summer, maths teachers! Stay safe.


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