5 Maths Gems #150

Welcome to my 150^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers. 

1. Tasks

I've spotted several great tasks on Twitter recently. Here are three of them:

@TickTockMaths shared an introduction to bounds calculations.

@canning_mrmaths shared a trigonometry task, based on an idea by @DanielPearcy.

 

@jontheteacher shared some tasks designed to introduce the concept of 'like' terms. 

2. Mrdaymaths.com

@nathanday314 shares fantastic resources on Twitter so it's great to see that he's launched a website where we can find them all in one place. Check out mrdaymaths.com to download his displays, tasks, resources and presentations. 

Nathan always has great ideas and presents them beautifully. For example, in this thread he explains how he designed a sequence of lessons that took Year 7 from substitution through to solving equations. The resources featured in this thread are available to download from his website.

I also love Nathan's 'No More Primes' game. Read his post to see how it works.

3. Angles and Ratios Interweaved

Thanks to @blatherwick_sam for sharing a lovely couple of tasks interweaving ratios and angles.

4. Quadratics Questions
I love these clever quadratics questions from @boss_maths. 

5. QLA Workbook Generator
@PiXLMattTheApp is always sharing free tools and resources for maths teachers. His latest is an online tool which allows you to create a student workbook from a QLA. 

I recommend that you watch Matt's video if you want to find out more about how this works.

 
Update
Over half-term (which feels like months ago!) I wrote three blog posts:

• Thinking about Misconceptions
• 5 Maths Gems #149
• Curriculum Sequencing

I also updated my conferences page which lists national maths education conferences. Please let me know of any additional events that I should add to this page.

Note that the MA Annual Conference is now open for booking. I'm one of the keynote speakers at this conference and am really looking forward to it.

Speaking of the MA, did you see that they have made the latest issue of their journal Mathematics in School freely available to read online? I'm a big fan of this journal and always look forward to receiving my copy in the post.

It was a busy week for me at work last week. One of my big responsibilities is to run the Key Stage 4 Options process. I launched it last week, running events for both parents and students. At the same time, my school was treated to a MAT review (basically a Mocksted, though we're not meant to call it that...). This was stressful, mainly because we're all 100% sure that our school is outstanding - in every sense of the word - and we really wanted to make sure that the inspectors saw that. The entire maths department made me immensely proud, as did my Year 9 class (I was observed teaching them some experimental ideas that I picked up at the last mathsconf... It was a bit risky for me to go ahead with that lesson but thankfully it went well! Phew).

Milestones
This is a milestone blog post for me. When I wrote my 50th gems post I was presented with a special cake at a conference (thanks Julia et al!). When I wrote my 100th gems post I recorded a special podcast with Craig Barton, and Chris Smith sent me a trophy which I still proudly display on my bookcase. Today I've reached 150 gems posts. Have you read them all?! You should! There's a gems index here. 

By the way, I know people love the gems posts, which are packed full of other people's great ideas, but I do also blog about my own ideas too! In fact I've written 274 posts which aren't gems posts, and the full archive is here.

Another milestone I recently passed (but failed to notice at the time!) was my ten millionth website visit. Thank you to all my readers for their support. I am immensely happy that my resource libraries save people time, and that my blog posts provide teachers with inspiration and ideas. Teachers who visit resourceaholic.com tend to do so on a regular basis, so I must be doing something right.

Finally, a personal milestone for me - my eldest daughter turned ten. A decade of parenting. 💖

I'll leave you with this tweet which made me laugh. I wonder what my students would write down if I asked them the same question.

On yesterday's quiz, just for fun, I ended with the request "in the spirit of Halloween, show the scariest math mistake you can." I wasn't disappointed by some of the student responses! pic.twitter.com/LV50BpE1us

— Chris Luzniak (@cluzniak) October 27, 2021

 

5 Maths Gems #142

Welcome to my 142^nd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers. 

1. Times Table Packs

Thank you to Sarah Farrell (@SarahFarrellKS2) for sharing a set of times table packs. Each one has a 25 different activities aimed at targeting conceptual knowledge and quick recall in each multiplication table. These will be very useful to primary teachers, and I can imagine that they'll also be a helpful resource in secondary interventions.

2. Website
Thank you to Matt Woodfine (@PiXLMattTheApp) for sharing his website
mathswhiteboard.com. This website features examples pairs, mini whiteboard activities, retrieval practice, a worksheet generator, starter activities, class interactive keypads and more. It's all free and easy to use, and Matt has done a lot of work on it recently.

3. Tasks

There have been loads of great tasks shared on Twitter recently. I have probably missed many of them, but here's a selection:

A couple of slides from a task progression I've been working on for connecting the maths I know my students are good at (sequences) to something they are finding tricky (linear graphs and equations of lines).
Thanks to @nathanday314 for making them look professional! pic.twitter.com/3cnjZBUNEh

— Charlotte ✏️📐🧮🤓 (@mrshawthorne7) February 21, 2021

 

Some questions on the mean inspired by @LearningMaths's box fill tasks.https://t.co/g1Fj1lVP1B

— ashton coward (@ashtonC94) February 24, 2021

Upcoming task in the Bearings unit. Is it possible to land on every point? I was a surprised the blue hexagon is complete but their are gaps on the pink hexagon. How would the grid change if the first move was is 2 spaces and second move is 1 space?#MTBoS #iteachmath #mathschat pic.twitter.com/OOLMqaIw87

— D Flynn (@Flynn_DP) February 24, 2021

Not terribly exciting ... After looking at Function Machines I will be moving students on to inputting numbers (then expressions) into a function. Thought I'd share in case it's useful to someone https://t.co/tEUXs2Lnem pic.twitter.com/CGpw3kDAv9

— Miss Konstantine (@giftedHKO) March 7, 2021

4. Virtual Escape Rooms

Thank you to Grant Whitaker for sharing three online maths escape rooms that he has made: one for Key Stage 1, one for Key Stage 2 and one for Key Stage 3.

Some of my readers have asked about maths escape rooms before. Grant asked me to share a link to an online course where teachers can learn how to make an online escape room. 

5. Foundation Booklets
Thank you to Mr Kingsley (@KingsleyMaths) for sharing a set of Foundation GCSE booklets. Each task contains ten 1/2 mark questions, which can be used as lesson starters. They build up in difficulty in both calculator and non-calculator topics.

I have a page of GCSE revision resources here.

Update

I am having a tough time at the moment to be honest. I was so excited to get back in the classroom and I spent a long time preparing to teach some awesome topics, but ridiculous lateral flow test policies have sent many of my students home already. This has upset me. On top of that, being the member of SLT in charge of cover in a year with high staff absence has finally broken me. But Easter is round the corner (a much-needed break after my Covid-filled Christmas) and I'm sure things will improve in the summer term.

Before my teaching of Pythagoras to Year 8 was interrupted, I'd delivered a lovely lesson revising squares and square roots (with and without a calculator) - this is a really important pre-requisite skill in this topic, so I feel that it was time well spent.

In case you missed them, my most recent blog posts were:

• Geometrical Reasoning Within Constraints - a Dose of Don post from Anne Watson
• 150th Birthday! - about the MA's 150th birthday celebrations.

If you haven't already booked, don't forget to get a ticket for the MA's April conference which is coming up soon. If you're not sure, just check out the workshops on offer! They are fantastic, and it's amazing that you can access them on demand for only £10.

Thank you to La Salle for running #mathsconf25 today, and to all the speakers. This was the seventh year in a row that I have attended a maths conference on Pi Day weekend!  Thank you to everyone who came to my session on GCSE Topics: What and How?. I focused mainly on simultaneous equations. The video will be released by La Salle soon. 

Thank you also to people who have bought a copy of my book A Compendium of Mathematical Methods over the last fourteen months. It took a lot of time and effort to write a book, and it's hard to be a female author in a male-dominated field, so I really appreciate the support. I probably don't tell people about my book as often as I should, because promoting your own book seems to bring disapproval from many. I need to stop shying away from it though - the tiny amount of extra income is helping me slowly save for a small loft conversion so my daughter can have her own bedroom, so it is important to me. If you want to 'try before you buy' then there's a sample chapter here, and a free Seneca course here which covers two chapters.

I'll leave you with this fun iceberg drawing tool from @JoshData. I love this!

Draw an iceberg and see how it will float https://t.co/or1oj7QmqH by @JoshData pic.twitter.com/6RCVhta09L

— algoritmic (@algoritmic) February 20, 2021

 

5 Maths Gems #134

Welcome to my 134^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

This is a double gems post! Lots of ideas and resources have been shared on Twitter in the last few weeks and - given it's the calm before the storm (i.e. the weekend before the start of what might be the craziest school year yet!) - I better post them all now, before things get too busy.

1. Games
Thank you to the wonderful @Ayliean for sharing her favourite short classroom games. They’re suitable for use with a whole class whilst the students sit down and the teacher runs the game on the board from the computer - this is good when social distancing measures are in place. I can imagine that some of these games might work well when getting to know a new tutor group. Open the file here for clickable links, and also check out the teacher guide with tips and curriculum links. 

I've just played some of these games - lots of fun!

2. New Resources
Thank you to @Miss_R_Em for sharing some some great angle reasoning worksheets on Twitter.

            

3. Quotes Display

I love this 50 Mathematical Quotations display from @nathanday314. I have added it to my Displays Page.

4. Videos

In Gems 133 I shared a video made by @McGuirea499. Mr McGuire has now made his own Youtube Channel. He's shared a number of new videos recently including a series on ratio tables. Here's an example:

@McGuirea499 has also launched the website makeemthinkmaths.com which features resources, ideas and videos.

5. Further Maths Resource

@MrsMathematica spotted a helpful resource on TES for anyone who teaches A Level Further Maths. Revision 4 Questions for AS Further Maths by Mel Murray is a set of tasks that could be used as starters for Year 2 students to revise AS content. 

A Level teachers might also be interested in @mathsaurus's new pages of A level exam questions by topic for each chapter of the Year 1 and Year 2 textbooks. All questions are from sample and 2018 papers for Edexcel, OCR A and B and AQA for the new syllabus. 

And whilst on the subject of A Level, I love this task on related binomial expressions from @360maths. 

6. White Rose

Those of you who follow the White Rose Scheme of Work will love @mrshawthorne7's spreadsheet for Years 7 to 9. It contains hundreds of links corresponding to the White Rose small steps, including tasks from Don Steward, ⁦‪@giftedHKO‬⁩ and ⁦‪@ChrisMcGrane84‬⁩. The link is on Charlotte's website. 

White Rose users will also like @BenBent05826467's work on linking UKMT questions to the White Rose scheme of work. 

7. Primary Resources
In Gems 132 I wrote about the publication of the Department for Education's of Mathematics Guidance documents for the Key Stage 1 and 2 national curriculum, and the accompanying CPD videos. 

The NCETM (@NCETM) has now shared a set of resources to accompany the ready-to-progress criteria. Written in collaboration with Nrich, the first of 79 PowerPoints can be downloaded from the NCETM's newly revamped website.

8. Vocabulary Map

@MissACMaths created a lovely map of maths vocabulary showing how it all links together.

9. Mr Carter Maths A Level

@MrCarterMaths has launched an exciting new A Level website which will be free for at least the first year.  

You can watch a video here to see how a pupil uses the site, and one here on how a teacher uses the site.

A similar site for GCSE is planned for next September.

10. Timers

I love a slick, professional PowerPoint. Thank you to @DrStoneMaths for sharing some transparent timer gifs for use in PowerPoint, based on a design by @nathanday314. They range from one minute up to ten minutes. 

On the subject of good resource layout, do have a look at this thread where @nathanday314 makes some great suggestions:

Update

For those of you who took the summer off and have missed some of my posts, here's what I've written since July:

• Maths Teacher FAQs
• 5 Maths Gems #133
• Warm Up Booklets
• 5 Maths Gems #132
• Catching Up?

I also updated my popular Year 7 Maths Activities post with ideas for first lessons with Year 7.

Another change to my blog was the addition of a 'buy me a drink' button! Thank you so much to the lovely people who have already used this - I am really touched by the kind messages.

Earlier this week I ran two webinars for The Mathematical Association called 'Preparing for September'. A global Zoom outage meant that the Monday afternoon session couldn't go ahead, but I was able to rearrange it for Wednesday. Thank you to everyone who joined me for one of the two webinars. The recordings can be viewed here and the slides are here.

 

Another thing I did over summer was made a resource based on the old textbook exercise below. I like the way it presents the problems in pairs: one with numbers, one with algebra. I've done this in class discussion before but not as an exercise. 

I've started planning my workshop for #mathsconf24 which will be run online on Saturday 3rd October. I'll be sharing ideas for Key Stage 3. Tickets are still available!

A few weeks ago I tweeted an open invitation to Friday night's 'socially distanced maths teacher drinks' in London to celebrate the start of a new school year (and commiserate the end of the holidays!). Thank you to the ten tweeters who joined me - it's always great to meet new people, and to catch up with old friends after so long. I really missed the socialising of the summer conference season this year. 

Thank you to @MathsTeacherKYP⁩ for the giant calculator. I will lend this to students!

Here are a few things you might have missed if you've been staying away over summer:

• @DrStoneMaths ran a survey on maths timetabled hours - you can read the results here.
@jamesgrime organised a group of Maths YouTubers to release videos on their favourite numbers over one million. The full playlist is here.

• Chika - the London schoolboy I mentioned in Gems 116 - has won an award for coming up with a test for divisibility by seven. This is such a great story to tell your students!
• Maths teacher @timdolan shared a really helpful video '20 Ideas for How To Use a Visualiser in the Classroom'.
• The NCETM published Covid recovery guidance for secondary maths teachers.

I'll leave you with this lovely activity 'Number Pyramids' from @MathforLove, along with helpful slides made by @fawnpnguyen, which include extension tasks.

 

Those of you going back to school next week - enjoy! And good luck. See you on the other side.

5 Maths Gems #131

Welcome to my 131^st gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Self Marking Sheets
Phil Rhodes (@Philmaths314) has shared a free set of Self Marking Google Sheets. As the name suggests, these are sheets that mark themselves. ⁦‪You can assign your class these Self Marking Google Sheets in Google Classroom. The site is very easy to use: choose a sheet, create your own copy and then assign to your pupils. When they input answers, they get an instant score.

2. A Level Knowledge Organisers
I am quite often asked about A level knowledge organisers, so it's great that there are now some available for teachers who wish to use these. 

Thank you to @Lucyjc1612 for sharing knowledge organisers for mechanics and statistics.

And thanks to @misschakera for sharing knowledge organisers for pure topics. 

I have now added these to my A level resource libraries and my Knowledge Organisers page.

Thank you also to Jake Goodman and Rachel Mahoney who emailed me some Key Stage 3 and 4 knowledge organisers for inclusion on the Knowledge Organisers page. 

3. Pedagogical Prompts

@DanielPearcy has published a new website danpearcy.com containing collections of tasks, prompts and resources.

Dan introduced his Pedagogy Prompts at the Seneca conference yesterday. These are designed to prompt discussion amongst maths teachers, to help develop teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. Dan suggests that discussion of these prompts might form the first ten minutes of a maths department meeting.

For the above prompt, Dan suggests the following questions:
1. Which formula do you use for the cosine rule? A formula that isn’t listed above?
2. Why might you stress the importance of number 2?
3. Is there a context in which you would consider teaching number 3? Is it a problem that this doesn’t appear in textbooks or formula books?

I found this really interesting. When I teach the cosine rule I always verbalise it only using the third formula, but have never seen it written down like this.

4. Planning Tool

Thank you to @timdolan who has created a planning tool to help maths teachers think through a topic or series of lessons before they plan in more detail. 

5. New Resources

Here are some new resources and activities that have recently been shared on Twitter:

• The classic Standards Unit resources have always been awesome. It's great that Ben Sparks (@sparksmaths) has started to turn some of these brilliant lessons into Desmos Classroom Activities. 
• @DJUdall shared this resource for exact trig values.
• @steelemaths uploaded a new resource to TES on Fibonacci-like sequences involving a little bit of algebra. 
• I used to work with colleagues who went crazy for the Pirate Game at the end of the summer term. Fans of this game may be pleased to hear that @AdamWteach has created a Google Classroom version!

Blog Posts to Read

• My favourite maths blogger @Mr_Rowlandson has shared a brilliant new blog post about posing questions in different directions.
• Check out @jnovakowski38's blog post summarising the best places to go for different sets of virtual manipulatives, along with presentations and articles to support the use of them. I have featured most of these websites in my gems posts over the years but it's great to have them all in one place. The only thing I'd add to this list is the wonderful MathsBot.com. 


• @InteractMaths shared a post with a range of carefully thought out median and range tasks.

CPD

Complete Mathematics Conference

Thank you to La Salle for sharing all the recordings from #mathsconf23 on their website. If you want to keep track of what you've watched, this session tracker shared by @MrWilliamsMaths is very helpful.

ATM CPD

The ATM has been publishing short CPD videos on its website. One example is The Words We Use with Jenni Ingram which is a seven minute exploration of the use of language in mathematics and how small changes can alter meaning. 

Senenca Conference

I really enjoyed the three hour Seneca conference on Saturday morning. It was a great length and format. The short talks were a fantastic way to showcase new speakers and - in a very rare thing for a maths conference - there was a good balance of men and women speaking. I spoke about Lowest Common Multiple - this was a mini-topics in depth presentation. You can watch it here, along with the other excellent presentations. 

Do check out the Padlet shared by Emma Bell (@El_Timbre) during this conference.  This will be of particular interest to teachers who teach GCSE re-sit. Emma shared her incredible work on 'The Focused 15' - fifteen interconnected topics to focus on with re-sit students.

Also check out the If The World Were 100 People video that Emma showed during her presentation. I have blogged about a few '100 people' resources in the past but this one was new to me.

My CPD Videos

The Order of Operations Topic in Depth presentation I recorded with Craig Barton back in February has now been published by TES. You can find it on my CPD Playlist, alongside all my other CPD videos.

Update

Two weeks left! I can't wait for the summer holidays. It has been a challenging term all round. 

My school is running our annual personal development week next week - this means I haven't had to set any maths work, but there's lots of other stuff going on including a virtual Sports Day and a Discovery Day, where I get to run a live lesson teaching students a load of fascinating stuff about banknotes (my chosen topic, which I know a lot about from my previous career). In the last week of term the maths lessons are back on but we also have our students coming in for end of term tutor group assemblies, which is really exciting. We're also doing end of year reports (consisting mainly of form tutor comments) which I have whole school responsibility for, so that will keep me busy. 

My own children have a lot going on too. Neither of my daughters (Year 1 and Year 3) have been back at school (the little one goes to an infants' school which couldn't accommodate Year 1), but their schools have planned some lovely end of term stuff, so they're happy. In terms of their maths, my Year 1 daughter is still doing the daily White Rose lessons, as well as using a few apps like Hit the Button and DragonBox. My Year 3 daughter does the White Rose lessons too, as well as Times Tables Rockstars. I recently realised that the Bronze 5-a-Day sheets from Corbettmaths Primary are perfect for her too (I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier!) so that's a late addition to our daily routine.

I will leave you with this fantastic video 'The Story of the Vinculum' from @jamestanton. It's brilliant.