To put a large or small number in standard form, a resource in the style of a recipe. There are more resources for this, just email info@mentor4maths.co.uk and I will email them over to you. Any feedback is welcome.

One of my favourite films is called “Pay It Forward” (http://gb.imdb.com/title/tt0223897/). This resource is based on the film. There is a young boy who decides to make the world a better place, he completes three good deeds to three different people, and when these people want to thank him he asks them to complete three good deeds to three people and pay it forward. Therefore this resource is designed on that concept except that I have put in a time limit, the deeds are all completed in one day. From that the pupils could work out a general rule and then calculate the number of days it takes a set amount of people to have completed a good deed, or, the numbers of people after a certain amount of days. This incorporates geometric sequences.

For this resource a student is asked to work out the fraction of a picture. Students could discuss how they would work it out in pairs. You could modify this and ask questions such as, "Which colour is the greatest percentage of the picture?". As part of the attachment there are other pictures, feel free to modify the questions in the powerpoint.

A quick post today as it is GCSE results, good luck to those at school and those I tutor. Today’s resource concentrates on Ratio, Proportion and FDP calculations with reasoning and problem solving. This can be broken up to use as plenaries at the end of a lesson or revision for assessments. This will be available on TES until Monday 27th August.

This is just another way of looking at prime factor decomposition, as roots of a flower. The resource could be adapted to put different numbers in.

This resource is another one I will use in my year 7 lessons, and is differentiated for the lesson. It is based on highest common factor.

Today’s resource follows a similar layout to yesterday’s Probability with Number. It looks at the language used with fractions as well as fractional calculations alongside probability. Fluency, reasoning and problem solving are all present within this resource with room for challenge: possibly remove one or more of the cards and the students have to come up with the calculation based on the probability take out part of the calculation, give them the probability and the student has to identify the missing fraction. The resource is available on TES for free until Monday 20th August. Feel free to send feedback.

I have always found it difficult to tutor negative numbers adding and subtracting without saying, "two negatives make a positive". Then when I was at university I was taught a way to show negative numbers with + - signs like in science, as it is common that a child would be taught about positive and negative charges in science. Unfortunately this didn't work too well with a year 6 pupil I tutored. I then decided to adapt this method and put positive and negative signs onto some cubes, this way the pupil could physically see what was happening. The pupil much preferred 'hands on' methods anyway and found this easier to understand. Therefore I thank the person who came up with the original idea which enabled me to adapt it to my pupils.

This resource is designed to check students understanding with negative numbers. Some of the answers are incorrect and the students need to find where they are. Once they find them, they need to write why they think it is incorrect and how they would fix it.

A resource designed to introduce venn diagrams to students without using numbers. This could be modified to different food objects etc. You could also partially fill the diagram and ask students to complete the diagram, or you put an ingredient in the wrong place and ask the students to correct it.

Only two weeks left to go until the end of the summer and the end of these resources. This weeks resources start off where last weeks ended, a crossover problem with probability and expressions. Today’s resource looks at simplifying, expanding and factorising algebraic expressions and combining it with number and probability. A good resource that can be used with a year 7/8 class and can be adapted to add challenge. This will be available for free until Friday 25th August on TES.

A task where you need to rearrange 3 tiles to make the centre of all tiles 100

Just a small group of differentiated questions I created for my year 7 class.

Continuing to work on the number section, I have created a few tables that test pupils knowledge of number properties. They have to first of all complete a table, then they have to find a number that is incorrect, then they have to put the categories in, then they can create their own and finally they have to explain why the final table cannot happen.

I have been asked to create some functional skills resources to help those completing apprenticeships in hospitality. This is a restaurant advertising task, where the student is asked to work out the total cost to advertise, split the cost between each department and then work out if it has made any difference. This involves money, addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, ratio and percentages. I am currently working on more like this, so keep a look out for them. This resource is available in word (so you can modify), pdf and as a presentation.

For this resource, students need to be in pairs. In their pairs they need to have access to a computer, all pictures printed off and the inequality slides printed. There is a table containing facts about each of the attractions and two blank rows for the students to find their own facts out about the attractions. They then work together to placing the pictures into the inequality. Alternatively, after studying the information provided and inserting other facts, one person can put two cards in the inequality and the other can guess the fact. This ensures the student practices their place value with the inequality rules, they will also need to be able to convert feet to metres and miles, minutes and seconds to hours to ensure that they are comparing facts correctly.

This resource ask students to really think about and visualize how they can dissect a shape and make it into a square. The students have to work out the total area of the shape and the length of sides needed to make the shape. They will use Pythagoras to work out the missing diagonals needed to make the squares. For an extension activity students can try and make their own shape and dissect it.

This resource takes six articles from the Guardian newspaper which involve percentages. The student is asked to match the percentage to the decimal equivalent.

Today’s resource combines knowledge of types of number with Ratio and Proportion. A nice review activity after finishing ratio and proportion with year 7/8 class. There is a mixture of fluency, reasoning and problem solving with students having to explain if a statement is correct. The last question is a lovely problem solving question where students are given ratios and they have to identify the numbers. This is available for FREE on TES until Friday 24th August.

Keeping with the probability theme this resources concentrates on percentages, finding a percentage of an amount, increasing and decreasing percentages. There is also a hint of fractions and types of number. Plenty of problem solving to keep them busy with question 4 and reasoning with question 5. This was put together with a year 7 class in mind, but could be easily adapted to add more challenge or support. For support I would change the questions so that they would say show that the probability of something happening is this. The percentages could be changed to easier or harder depending on the ability of the group. The resource is available on TES for free until Monday 20th August.