#5 Maths Gems 181

Welcome to my 181^st gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. A level
I've seen a number of fantastic new A level resources recently:

• From @the_chalkface, exam questions arranged by topic for Edexcel A level Maths and Further Maths. Although similar collections already exist, this may become my go-to: it's well organised, easy to access and high quality.
• From @m4thsdotcom, 160 worksheets for the pure course, targeted by grade.
• A new page for A level resources on one of my favourite websites: 1stclassmaths.com.
• A growing collection of A level resources from @draustinmaths at draustinmaths.com/a-level.
• Year 12 revision sheets with solutions from @mrsouthernmaths.

Thank you to everyone for their generous sharing!

2. Standard Form
@giftedHKO has been tweeting about some of the lovely tasks on her website mathshko.com including this one for standard form:

Check out her website for more like this.

3. Memory Maths
@studymaths has updated the classic 'Memory Maths' game. You can now generate your own. We used to use this at my last school on Open Evening -  parents, children and teachers would be given a mini whiteboard and told to draw a grid. Then they would gather round to write answers on their whiteboards as the questions flashed up. It was always lots of fun - everyone was always excited to see who would be the first to complete their grid.

There's a wide range of games and starters to check out on mathsbot.com.

4. Quadrilaterals

Over summer @EmathsUK shared a really nice quadrilaterals task that I've not seen before. Students are asked to come up with suitable questions to populate the flow chat accurately and then name the quadrilaterals. The task can be downloaded from emaths.co.uk.

5. Circles
@AMercerMaths made a lovely "Sometimes, Always, Never" on parts of a circle which provides lots of opportunities for reasoning.

Update

I haven't written a gems post since July so here's a quick update on what I got up to over summer.

In July @MeganGuinan1 went to drinks to celebrate Matt Parker's book Love Triangle becoming a bestseller. We met the most fascinating people at these drinks, from zoologists to linguists.

In August I met up with fellow South London maths teachers @MeganGuinan1, @LeightonM4ths and @nkl_17. 

And I ended the summer with a trip to Belfast where I had a fantastic experience presenting to a wonderful group of maths teachers from the West Belfast Area Learning Community.

I wrote three blog posts during August that you might have missed:

• Latest Resources and Trends
• Digitising Old Textbook Exercises
• Challenges for a Head of Maths

The start of term has hit like a sledgehammer, like it does every year, and I already feel like I'm at peak exhaustion. I have 33 students in my Year 12 A level maths class, but only enough desks for 32. Year 12 have neither textbooks nor devices because we don't have the budget to buy either. I also have 27 students in my Year 12 Further Maths class which is a shock to the system after having only six last year! It will take a bit of adjusting but we'll make it work. Apart from all that, we seem to be settling into our new school year - in my last blog post 'September Routines' I shared some of the things we have put in place in the first few weeks of term. We were very happy that over 100 students turned up to our first Papers Society - this bodes well. I'm also very much enjoying teaching our new option block class in Year 11 - teaching Level 2 Further Maths in timetabled lessons for the first time is a delight.

I hope to see lots of you attend #mathsconf36 in Sheffield next month. I will be sharing some insights on things students need to look out for at GCSE.

Have a great week!

5 Maths Gems #167

Welcome to my 167^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Polypad

I've blogged about Polypad before, and used it myself in a lesson on nets last week. My students were suitably impressed! Recently there's been a series of tweets about some really cool stuff that Polypad can do - these are definitely worth a look. Click on the tweets below to see the animations in action, and check out @MathigonOrg's feed for more like this. I particularly like what you can do with factors.

It’s awesome how how Ss can explore greatest common factor of any set of numbers in @MathigonOrg #Polypad — especially when number fact fluency isn’t quite there yet. For many Ss, automaticity can develop through playful explorations like these! https://t.co/HgqAGlaGXg #MTBoS… https://t.co/Zk8W8FU5mG pic.twitter.com/wZ5QHE8HwV

— Tim Brzezinski (@TimBrzezinski) February 12, 2023

How does scaling a hexagon's side length impact the 4 animations on Polypad? What will stay the same? What will change?

Learn about these new features in the latest "What's New" video at https://t.co/oSXzdL2Bq4@MathigonOrg @desmosclassroom @Amplify #iteachmath #mtbos pic.twitter.com/JAzZnsIJLM

— David Poras (@davidporas) February 17, 2023

Visually solving equations w/fractions as coefficients in @MathigonOrg #PolyPad. https://t.co/vgrvly7vVK @desmosclassroom @Amplify #math #MTBoS #ITeachMath #algebra pic.twitter.com/2bXs2Gk6fP

— Tim Brzezinski (@TimBrzezinski) February 17, 2023

2. Fingertip Knowledge
@mathsmrgordon has shared a set of fingertip knowledge documents for Foundation Tier GCSE. These are like self-quizzable knowledge organisers, similar to my Knoweldge Quiz books, but with calculations as well as factual recall. 

You can download these documents for algebra, number, ratio and proportion, charts and averages, probability and geometry and measure. Thanks Ben!

3. Standard Form
@nathanday314 continues to produce amazing resources. His Calculations with Standard Form Booklet is full of excellent tasks with loads of challenge. Here are a couple of examples:

Nathan also produced some Star Wars Pythagoras Challenges which I love:

4. Kinematic Graphs

I taught tangent to a curve and area under a graph to Year 11 a couple of weeks ago and spotted these two tweets about kinematic graphs. These are helpful for both maths and physics teachers.

I'm a sucker for a pretty graphic - and how pretty are these! https://t.co/epPwAsVG2j
So many fab comics on here for Mechanics and Physics #mathsTLP pic.twitter.com/R2q8KbvnpH

— Christine Norledge (@MissNorledge) January 29, 2023

Created this table fill for velocity-time graphs pic.twitter.com/fecWPsOCGW

— Miss E (@Miss_R_Em) August 25, 2022

5. Same and Different
Thank you to @KarenCampe for sharing her brilliant blog post 'Same and Different'. This post is about a thinking strategy Karen uses for discussion in her lessons in which she asks students to compare and analyse features of two mathematical situations. Here are a few examples.

The first shows two subtraction problems: 5 – 2 (top) and 2 – 5 (bottom).

And this one is for gradient and y intercept:

And here's one on simultaneous equations:

And one on notation:

There are loads more examples in Karen's blog post.

Update

My school finally had its much-awaited first visit from Ofsted. They did a deep dive in maths. I'm really proud of my wonderful team - they're all superstars. Here's seven tenths of my department celebrating the end of a challenging week:

Over half-term I was busier than usual on my blog, publishing three posts:

• Ten Videos for Maths Lessons
• Area in Depth (sharing an exciting new video from me and Craig Barton, sponsored by AQA)
• Ratio by Sam Blatherwick (a #doseofdon post)

I received two lovely parcels: David Acheson's excellent new book 'The Spirit of Mathematics' (with thanks to Oxford University Press) and a new Casio 991CW, engraved with my name (with thanks to Stephen at Science Studio).

Here are some things you might have missed:

• I discovered a website drolivermathematics.com which features numerous resources including condensed papers for GCSE, A level and AQA Certificate in Further Maths. This is great for reducing printing costs, and I like the way the solutions are set out.
• I made a Year 11 final stretch calendar for my team to help them plan their remaining time with Year 11. Feel free to download and edit this for your school if it helps.
• @draustinmaths has been creating loads of new resources including some for indices, similarity, trig graphs and recurring decimals. Check out her website draustinmaths.com to download her resources.
• @Arithmaticks shared a great blog post 'Year 11 Staple Challenge' about a clever way to use past papers with GCSE students.
• @MattTheApp shared an exciting new feature on his website: a blank whiteboard interface with a large range of tools. It has everything from a protractor to a number line to an onscreen timer.

As we head into Spring, there's loads to look forward to. #mathsconf31 in Bracknell will be great - I'm very much looking forward to presenting on Pythagoras which is one of my favourite topics. La Salle is still looking for presenters for this conference and I strongly encourage teachers to submit workshop proposals. I'll also be taking forty Year 10 students to Maths in Action on 7 March which will be brilliant. And I'll be going to the Christopher Zeeman Medal Lectures and Ceremony at the Royal Society on 22 March. The Spring term ends with the Joint Conference of the Mathematics Subject Associations at Warwick University. I love a residential campus conference! So there's lots of fun stuff coming up. On the flip side, over the next two weeks I'll have 127 Year 11 mock papers to mark, which is a bit less fun... I'm sure lots of you are in the same boat.

I'll leave you with a set of GCSE revision memes (first shared by Paul Collins years ago - and I've added some more). We've put a few up in the maths corridor in the run up to mocks to lighten the mood and get people smiling. Don't forget, if you're looking for revision resources for Year 11, there's an extensive collection here.

5 Maths Gems #139

Welcome to my 139^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers. 

Well here we are, at the end of the most gruelling term of our lives. I'm sure we are all incredibly relieved to have made it to end of term in one piece. We should all feel proud that we've continued to fill our students' lives with the joy of maths, and we will continue to do so, no matter what gets thrown at us. Thankfully we now we have a short respite - from the physical exhaustion of pandemic teaching, if not from the anxiety. Throughout the Christmas break many of us will be steeling ourselves for January, when the level of challenge in schools and colleges will be ramped up even further. I wish I could offer words of encouragement and solace, but to be honest I am totally lost for words. I just hope that you all manage to have a safe and peaceful break over the festive period.

Perhaps on the first day of the holidays we all need to switch off from maths teaching, but I know some of you take comfort in browsing through teaching ideas and resources. It can be a cheerful distraction from the sadness that surrounds us. So, on with the gems.

1. Tasks

Thank you to @SegarRogers for sharing this brilliant speed, distance, time task. I love this. I've added it to my resource library so I remember to use it next time I teach speed. 

Thanks also to @ashtonC94 for continuing to share his expertly written tasks, including these on standard form and this interesting take on recurring decimals.

Here's another excellent set of tasks from @giftedHKO. The focus here is pie charts - a great topic which links nicely to proportional reasoning. 

2. Teaching Tools 

Thank you to @123lots for sharing @mathforge's handy Make Your Own Axes tool.

Also, I'm not sure whether I've featured this site before - thank you to @jemmaths for the reminder about @tesseralis’s website tessera.li. This website features a beautiful polyhedra viewer which teachers might find useful.

3. Website Updates

@MathsDunbar has completed Version 3 of his Trinity Maths Programme for the new National Curriculum. Matt has made ten of his best interactive topic files available as free downloads, which are macro-enabled Excel spreadsheets.

@MrMorleyMaths has completed and published Phase 2 of his website mrmorleymaths.co.uk. Every topic now has a starter activity of questions, with answers, testing prerequisite knowledge.

4. GCSE Revision Resource

Thank you to @Billyads_47 for sharing a GCSE revision resource.

Produced a revision booklet to use with yr11 during a revision day. I included @corbettmaths found & higher checklist to make it a 12 page stunner. Many thanks to @username_FINAL for providing the inspiration for a revision formula sheet. @suffolkmaths https://t.co/XjkxJjOqF6 pic.twitter.com/PBnpyLDenO

— Billy Adamson (@Billyads_47) November 23, 2020

Don't forget that my GCSE Revision Resources page is absolutely packed with excellent revision resources for your Year 11s.

5. Multiplication Tool

Thank you to @mathforlove for sharing these visual flash cards for multiplication that he has produced in conjunction with @MathigonOrg. This is a brilliant free online tool for children learning their times tables.

Christmas

I know it's too late for me to share Christmas resources, but in case you want to use them next year...

@Ayliean shared some lovely maths-themed Christmas cards.

An early ChristMaths present for you

✨printable mini Christmaths cards✨https://t.co/kvAPiHMuPS

4 per page, 8 pages to a class 💗❄️
Feel free to put your own message inside and remember print flip on short edge 🤓🎄 pic.twitter.com/N8u2hrU6Ns

— Ayliean (@Ayliean) December 13, 2020

This snowflake dot-to-dot activity shared by @giftedKHO is really nice. 

And @DrBennison shared his annual A Level Calculated Colouring, which is always fantastic.

I do have a page of Seasonal Resources. I didn't even get time to look at it myself this year, but it is there if you are ever after a themed maths activity. 

Update
I recently published another 'Dose of Don' post from Anne Watson - do check it out if you haven't already.

I have also created another set of warm-up booklets for my classes. These are specifically designed for the curriculum my school - each week we cover three different retrieval topics - but feel free to borrow and adapt if you like. In the most recent set, most questions were taken from CIMT resources. 

There are a number of online maths conferences coming up in the Spring term. See my conference listings for details. I will be speaking at two of them - #MathsConfMini on Friday 22nd January and the WRM Secondary Maths Brunch on Saturday 30th January. 

Don't forget to check out Marvellous Maths 2 - an entire online training course for maths teachers.

Congratulations to Craig Barton on the fifth anniversary of his incredibly successful education podcast. You can read his reflections on five years of podcasting here.

Finally, I should mention that as my own school continues to grow (we will have Year 10 for the first time next year) we will be recruiting a new maths teacher in the Spring term, to start in September 2021. If you are interested in coming to work with me and want to get a flavour of what the school is like, check out our Open Day video and our Christmas video, and get in touch if you want to have a chat about it.

I'll leave you with this video, shared by @berniewestacott, which features Douglas Clements speaking at the White House on early childhood maths education. It's under five minutes, and well worth a watch.

Have a very merry Christmas, maths teachers. Time to get some rest. x

5 Maths Gems #137

Welcome to my 137^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Guided Reading

Thank you to Nicola Whiston (@whisto_maths) for sharing a maths guided reading task, using a template created by @MrHand__. 

I've not used activities like this in maths before. It looks like it would be great for enrichment, and would also help to develop a very important skill (for everyone, not just for students who go on to take MEI A level maths which involves a comprehension task).

More resources like this were shared in this thread from Katie Pollard (@takepi21). Here's Katie's 'Saving lives with maths' guided reading task:

And here's one from Nix (@NixxSunshine) on magic squares.

These teachers have generously shared their tasks here so others can borrow them. 

Thank you also to Miss Olive (@missolivemaths) who wrote a series of comprehension exercises for a range of mathematical texts and shared them here back in July.

2. A Level Support
Thank you to @EmporiumMaths for sharing over 120 free videos with practice and exam questions to help students master the key skills that are needed in the transition from GCSE Maths to A Level Maths. 

Thank you also to @DavidB52s for pointing me towards MEI's page of Useful resources for students self-studying AS/A level Mathematics and Further Mathematics. If you're setting work remotely for Sixth Form students then this page will be really helpful. It includes links to transition material, A level maths videos, teaching resources, and material for Further Maths. Check out the self-paced online course for students aiming for an A* in A level maths - it's incredible that this is free to access!

3. Standard Form
Thank you to @McGuirea499 for sharing this excellent Standard Form resource on his website makeemthinkmaths.com.

I have been thinking about standard form and thought I would share. I Like using the Gattegno chart to represent SF. Also asking pupils to explain why statements are true gets them reasoning and building up understanding. #MakeEmThinkMaths pic.twitter.com/wWCEhh6vUF

— Mr McGuire (@McGuirea499) October 3, 2020

4. Timeline

I've shared this before, but it's been updated so it's a good time to share it again. Thank you to @MathigonOrg for the interactive Timeline of Mathematics. Click on each mathematician to read more about them.  

Just like everything else on Mathigon, this is excellent.

5. Tasks

A number of new tasks were shared over half term, including tasks from @maths_mrsm, @InteractMaths, @mrsouthernmaths, @ChrisMcGrane84, @ashtonC94 and @giftedHKO:

Simplifying ratio (@maths_mrsm)

Gradients at points (@InteractMaths)

Coordinate geometry (@mrsouthernmaths)

Increasingly Difficult Common Factors (@ChrisMcGrane84)

Fractional Powers (@ashtonC94)

Angles on a straight line (@giftedHKO)

Thank you to all of these teachers for generously share their resources for free.

CPD
Do check out the free videos on my CPD channel if you get a chance. This is where I share the presentations I have previously done at conferences.

If you enjoy these presentations, then do sign up to Marvellous Maths 2, which is a full online CPD course for maths teachers from me and Craig Barton. For only £30 you get absolutely tonnes of content, and once you've enrolled you can access it at any time, so you don't have to do the whole course at once.

Also check out my newly updated conference listings page, which lists upcoming national conferences for maths teachers.

24 Hour Maths Magic Show

It was an honour to be involved in 24 Hour Maths this weekend. This 24-hour long mathematical magic show featured lots of incredibly talented people sharing mathematical magic tricks and puzzles on YouTube. I really enjoyed taking part (Sophie Maclean did the brilliant Kruskal's Count trick on me! Clever stuff). I also loved watching the rest of the tricks (admittedly I didn't watch the whole 24 hours but will catch up on what I missed!). Well done to the team of organisers, and everyone involved.

If you want to bring some mathematical joy into your life, I highly recommend watching the whole show (the list of guests and timings is here). If you don't have time for the full 24 hours, a good starting point is Chris Smith's (@aap03102) 30-minute guest segment, which had me smiling from start to finish. He shares a trick which is very easy to replicate with students, plus a treat (the Halloween Octagon), plus a brilliant song. Watch here... 👇 Enjoy!

5 Maths Gems #98

Welcome to my 98^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Area Activity
Thanks to @MrNiksMathClass for sharing a nice activity in which students apply their knowledge of area formulae.

Too often measurement problems become just an exercise in evaluating formulas. Make it more interesting by taking away all the numbers. In this example, students must find values (no repeats) for the dimensions so that all the shapes have equal areas. #tvdsbmath #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/7DzsN8912M

— Math with P. Nik (@MrNiksMathClass) 28 October 2018

2. Triangle Puzzles
John Rowe (@MrJohnRowe) shared a new set of triangle puzzles which are inspired by area mazes. They can all be solved without using fractions or decimals.

3. Standard Form
Thank you to Gillian Mathewson (@gmathewson1) for sharing a standard form variation grid. I like the way students convert to expanded form before converting to standard form - it's a good check that they really understand what's going on. I've added this to my number resources library.

4. Multiplying Fractions
Mary-Kate Connolly (@MKConnolly1991) shared a picture of her board which shows how she explains fraction multiplication. Note the use of colour to support the explanation.

Here's the same approach explained in 'Polish Up Your Mathematics’ by Fawdry which was published in 1945.

5. Mock Season
If you have Year 11 mocks coming up (I'm marking them at the moment!) then don't forget that I published a mock revision blog post last year. My GCSE 9- 1 revision post might also be helpful - it contains a long list of excellent GCSE revision resources.

New to my revision page is a unit conversions quiz - this goes alongside the formula quiz I made a couple of years ago.

If you want to print personalised booklets for your Year 11s based on their individual performance in mock exams then you'll be pleased to hear that PinPoint Learning has a free trial until 29th January 2019. The June 2018 QLAs are available so if you used these papers for your mocks then PinPoint is all ready to go.

Updates
In case you missed it, my latest post was on map scale. I wrote about approaches and resources for this undertaught and underesourced GCSE topic.

I also wrote 'Turing for the Fifty' which tells the story of the time I worked in banknotes at the Bank of England, and why I am particularly excited that there's an opportunity to nominate a mathematician for the new fifty pound note.

I've set up a new Instagram account to share maths teaching ideas and inspiration so do follow me if you're an Instagram user. I will still be sharing updates on Twitter and Facebook as usual. And if you want to get my blog posts by email then you can subscribe here.

I'm very excited to be approaching a milestone - I hope to publish my 100th gems post in December, and will celebrate by recording a special maths gems podcast with Craig Barton.

My resource libraries have been very busy lately - I'm glad teachers find them useful when planning lessons. My Topics in Depth page has also had a lot of visits as a large number of primary teachers have discovered that I have a really useful set of primary packs there. I have been updating my conferences page with new events and my pret homework site with new contributions.

If you're based in London, don't forget to join to one of my Maths Hub workgroups. We already have a large number of A level teachers signed up up for the A level workgroup which is really exciting. In the GCSE workgroup we will be working on ratio and unit conversions. I have done lots of research into these topics lately so I am excited to share what I've found.

Next weekend I'm going to the Maths Jam annual gathering with friends - I can't wait! What a great way to spend a weekend.

I'll leave you with this fun fractions activity that I found in ‘Fundamental Arithmetic’ by P B Ballard which was published late 1920s.