Trying to expand my A Level codebreaker portfolio and this is next on the rank; differentiate using the chain rule to find the punchline to a cheesy joke. It’s something different to a text book exercise anyway…

Differentiate the algebraic expressions to find the punchline to a cheesy joke; something different from going through exercises in the book!

Fill in the blanks to reveal the punchline to the cheesy joke. These seem popular with students and can be used as a main task, starter or plenary but you have a brain and don’t need me to tell you how to structure your lessons!

This is probably more aimed at Further Maths Level 2 Certificate or early A Level but could be a challenge task for GCSE students too. It’s the usual “answer the questions and reveal the punchline”.

I use these as a break from the "past paper drudgery" in the run up to exams. The questions are taken from past papers (amended in some cases). The idea is to answer each question fully then scan the QR code linked to the correct answer to form a code. Each QR code (correct or incorrect to avoid "cheating") scans to a song or artist that contains a number or colour, so this generates the code.

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.

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.

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…

Essentially students must use y=mx+c to answer questions then reveal the punchline to a joke. There is a grid and five lines from which to refer to, but this includes parallel and perpendicular lines and their equations as well.

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.

Two true or false activities: one on Venn diagrams including probability and one on shading regions of Venn diagrams with both using set notation. Students decide and discuss whether the answers given are true or false. These have worked successfully in real-life and online lessons for me.

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).

Integrate the expressions, reveal the punchline… This includes “reverse chain rule”, one integration by parts and where the differential of the denominator is the numerator. A useful starter?

Using the "If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our club" advert from the 1980s, some maths questions based loosely on it. Designed as a bit of fun and to practise functional maths.

Calculate the answers; if even colour in the question number in the grid, if not leave it blank. It scans to the Depeche Mode song "Policy of Truth" linking in that we have "lies, damn lies and statistics".

Five questions each on finding a side and finding an angle using the Sine Rule, with gaps to fill in, working forwards and backwards. This was designed as an introduction to the Sine Rule but use it (if you do at all) however you like…

The “Card Sort” sheet is actually the answers, but I have produced a worksheet version if you aren’t keen on the faff of cutting and sticking. I’ve included the sketches in case you want to change anything.

This takes students through factorising quadratics, solving them and onto completing the square, including solving quadratics that won't factorise nicely. Designed as starters/plenaries/assess the learning activities.

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).