Two fish jokes to find: one on quadratics graphs and one on other curves. Ideal for classroom in real life or online and also homework tasks.

We’ve had a bit of an obsession with factorising quadratics with a coefficient of x squared greater than 1 at school this week so I produced this codbreaker to add a fish pun to the mix. They do get quite challenging but that’s kind of the point…

The usual “solve the problems, discover the joke”. These seem to work well in many different settings: classroom, homework, online.

Find the missing values in each coordinate given the equation of the graph to reveal the fish-related joke. Ideal for use in the classroom, online or as a homework task.

We are about to teach coordinates alongside sequences so thought that this might work nicely. It’s the usual “work out the answers and reveal the punchline” caper, something that works well in class, online and as a homework. The students seem to enjoy the competitive nature of these even if they do groan at the jokes.

The usual answer the questions then reveal the fish joke. These have always been popular in my classroom, as well as working well online. I know some people have used these as homework tasks too. The benefit of these types of resources is that students will see that it is spelling out words and therefore know they are fine allowing the teacher to help those who need it.

This is designed to prevent students from being entirely reliant on their calculators, although there are some where a calculator can be used. It’s the usual stuff: answer the questions and reveal a fish/sea creature-related joke. Useful in class, online or as a homework.

Answer the average and range questions to reveal the aquatic joke; this involves basic calculations, averages problems and a frequency table. These are useful in the classroom, online and as a homework task.

Students can use the nth term to answer these sequence questions but it doesn’t push them that way. The joke is cheesy but you’ve probably come to expect that by now… ideal in class, online or as a homework.

A little bit of mutually exclusive but otherwise normal probability question all to discover a probability related fish gag. These work in class, online or as a homework.

This does what it says on the tin basically; a load of right-angled triangles with missing lengths to calculate and reveal the fish joke. These work in class, online or as a homework task and reassure students as they start to spell a word or sentence.

There are six “Defuse The Bomb” worksheets here involving: one on reflection, one on rotation, one on translation, one on reflection/rotation/translation and two on enlargements (one including fractional, one including negative and fractional). These are designed to create discussion in class, by deciding whether the transformations described are correctly described or not. I have designed these with online learning in mind.

Five “Defuse The Bomb” sheets on area and perimeter including: rectangles/triangles, parallelograms/trapeziums, circles, compound shapes (no circles), compound shapes (including circles). These are designed to give students a bit of confidence as the correct answers appear on the sheet whilst you, as the teacher, can help those who are struggling initially. These have worked well in the classroom and online but could also work as homework tasks.

This is a true or false activity designed to create discussion about stem-and-leaf diagrams. including using them to find the mode, median and IQR. These work well online but also in the classroom.

Students are required to decide whether the 10 statements based upon a cumulative frequency graph are true or false. This is designed to create discussion but also with online lessons in mind.

Six questions where students are given the question and the answer, their task being to add in the workings. The “possible workings” sheet are just there as an example, not as a concrete “it must be done like this”. These are designed to encourage working and method.

Another fish related effort after finding the missing angles using circle theorems. Ideal for online lessons and in-person ones too; students like the cheesy jokes despite their protestations to the contrary.

This is designed to encourage workings; students are given a correct addition or subtraction of fractions and have to fill in the blanks in th workings. I have included a “possible workings” files as well, but I don’t really want to force students down any specific road, only encourage them to get each stage down on paper.

Ten statements regarding a comparative bar chart; students decide whether the statements are true or false. Designed to create discussion and for use in online lessons.

Another fish-related joke after some standard form conversions and calculations. Ideal for online lessons but also in-person lessons.