Erica is having trouble with her homework (as she usually does) and requires help from your classes to correct her answers and explain the errors she’s made. This encourages discussion in class…

This asks about median, range, upper and lower quartiles from a list of data. The usual cheesy gag to discover (an anagram this time).

Three codebreakers covering area using trig, the sine rule and cosine rule respectively. Make sure that students do not round any answers until right at the end (it does state on each to round you “final answer”) and reveal the three cheesy jokes. These work well in my classes as starters, plenaries or main tasks. Each one is an anagram so that students are not tempted to guess letters. The final question on each is more of a problem solving question.

Written for the AQA Further Maths Level 2 Certificate but could be used at A Level too. This is the usual “answer the questions, reveal the anagram of the punchline” thing, being an anagram so that student don’t guess the order/answers. I like this joke but others may not…

These are an attempt to break from the monotony of past papers in the run up to exam season. I have taken 2 or 4 (depending on whether they will fit on a page!) questions from past papers and put them on one sheet; I will photocopy onto A3 for students to have a go in groups and discuss. The aims/rules etc are all listed if you wish to follow them and hopefully they all make sense. I have also provided answers.

I was asked to teach a friend’s child how to add and subtract fractions from the basics up to adding fractions with similar denominators. This is what I came up with, using colouring in rectangles to help. I hope it’s useful.

I say polynomials but actually I could only really use cubics, but there you go. Answer the questions (given one real root) and reveal the hilarious joke… I actually quite like this one (so did my form group).

Read the box plots carefully and discover the punchline to a cheesy gag… Errors corrected…

Clive has a homework on function notation involving domains, ranges, inverses and composite functions. He has, as per usual, made errors that your class can find, correct and explain so that Clive learns from his mistakes. These are designed to create discussion in class and this one could be used as a transitional activity between GCSE/IGCSE and A level.

I needed something for deriving formulae and came up with this. There are some that take students through the process by the hand and then four at the end that ask students to go solo (as it were).

Use place value to find how many times larger one digit is from another and then find the difference between them. This idea was floated on Twitter by Dave Taylor (@taylora01) and full credit goes to him for the idea and I hope this does it some justice.

This is a presentation involving six real recipes (linked on each slide) and their ingredients which students have to work with to make the number of each required. This is designed to create a bit of discussion and the questions get more challenging as you work through them.

Indefinite integrals using the skills learned in Year 1 of the Edexcel A Level course that reveal a lame joke. These are a nice break from ploughing through a text book!

Another homework where Erica needs your class’ help; she is tackling standard deviation this time as well as quartiles and percentiles.

Erica’s met mechanics for the first time and is trying to complete her “Modelling In Mechanics” homework but without much success; can your classes help Erica by correcting her mistakes and explaining why they are mistakes?

Five pairs of graphs; students need to calculate where intersections with each other and axes are. I have produced a PowerPoint so the graphs can be displayed, but if you want a worksheet there is one of those too. The worksheet asks for turning points on the final set of graphs.

Designed for the AQA Further Maths Level 2 Certificate course but could be used at A Level. Answer the questions, reveal the joke, you know the drill…

Students must work out from the written transformations the transformation matrix in each case to reveal a punchline to a joke. This is designed for the AQA Further Maths Level 2 Certificate qualification.

Five questions of increasing difficulty on this topic; there are ten potential answers to prevent students guessing but allows students to get on in the knowledge that their answer should be one of the options whilst the teacher can help those who need it.

Four of these sheets covering: capacity, mass and length plus one true or false activity involving problems with all three which should encourage discussion in class and force students to read the question carefully if nothing else. These have worked well in class and online allowing the teacher to help those who need it whilst other get on, reassured that their answers are on the sheet.