An experienced Primary & Secondary Maths teacher. Enjoying promoting and sharing my resources on TES. I embed problem solving, Maths Mastery and Magenta Principles into my lessons. I love fun and interactive elements which help engagement as long as challenge and assessment is built into this. Please do leave reviews if you find my resources useful. Thank you.
An experienced Primary & Secondary Maths teacher. Enjoying promoting and sharing my resources on TES. I embed problem solving, Maths Mastery and Magenta Principles into my lessons. I love fun and interactive elements which help engagement as long as challenge and assessment is built into this. Please do leave reviews if you find my resources useful. Thank you.
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4 pages of terms and descriptions. 99 terms in all.
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Here are two sets of domino loop cards. You can use them for starters and then back them up with the matching worksheet or use as a plenary and then use the matching worksheet as the next days starter.
You print them onto A4 card and cut them out. Then shuffle and give a set to your students. They have to rearrange the cards into a line order by matching the question to the answer. They are all questions like "The probability of getting a six on a fair die is..."
The first set has 22 cards and the second (which is longer to complete and the questions are harder as well) has 34 questions.
Afterwards (I like to get something into the student exercise books) there are matching worksheets where some of the questions have to be reworked out and written onto the sheets before the sheet is stuck in. There are two versions of each worksheet (One has more answers to put in so you can give to your quicker students).
All in you are getting two sets of domino cards, each with two matching worksheets. Solutions to the domino cards and the worksheets are included!
You could easily modify each of these card sets and WS to reduce the questions down to less for your lower/slower students.
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Originally I used this as a short 10 minute activity as part of a whole lesson of many circus activities (many other of my circus activities are listed on TES resources) however you can easily build a whole lesson around it.
"Will it snow this Christmas?" is the question. First just ask this question. Then give them the last five years weather data. Make a choice again. Then give more data from last 24 years. Then ask them to make a choice again. Then give them the answer sheet.
This is a good activity to provide lots of discussion. If you put the cards into sealed envelopes then it adds to the engagement and hence motivation. Its the sort of activity which looks great when being observed - particularly if you get some good discussion. You may wish to edit the city names to somewhere near your school. I made up the data but you could easily find the records of a city on the web. You may need a discussion about what constitutes snowing on Christmas day (e.g. snow flakes falling on the roof of the local BBC news building). You could bring in about how people bet on this happening.
It may be worth adding in some question prompts like:
How do you know this?
Why do you think that?
Are you absolutely sure? Can you prove it?
Can you now explain to me why you think that!
What evidence do you have about that one?
You could put these prompts onto cards and ensure the students use them during the activity.
I've used random name choosers (RNC) for some time. SMART Notebook has a good one (It's a random word generator - you just put in the names of the students in the class). I came up with this idea after a student said "Can I pass the question?" and I replied "Not unless you have a pass card!" He then drew a pass card on his whiteboard and tried to pass it again!
What we have are a variety of pass cards produced. The rules were written down for me to make sure I stuck to them and for consistency. Basically students can earn pass cards which then excuse them from answering questions when the random name chooser selects them. There is probably no educational value in doing this - it's just fun and it's very engaging for them. It's also quite funny when the class all pass all their questions to the class clown to answer (watch out for bullying though!)
Students can earn pass cards for anything which you want to reward. The other way of doing this came from an INSET session where the facilitator asked us all to look under our seats for a prize. 200 teachers all looked under the seats. We all laughed (Not) as he said there was nothing to find there but he proved the point about the engagement of coming in to the lesson and seeing if you had a pass card! Hence the wallet size pass cards are simply blu tacked to the underside of a seat. You can choose (at random) whose seat to stick it under or you could just put it under someone you want to get involved more (as they will become the class center of attraction when they are picked by the RNC). I had students coming in asap during break to see if they had a pass card under the seat!
I'd like to use it again however the head in my current school says that the school reward systems are to be used and these cards add an additional layer to the systems. I think that they can supplement the school systems and you can tailor them so that they fit within the school systems.
The colour sheet prints out on A4 (card and laminate if you can). Get the sheets to each table of four and give them the apparatus (counters, dice, coins) and ask them to choose which game they think they want to play (and which game they would like to be the host of). I tried it without giving them any lessons on probability space diagrams before hand as I gave it as a problem solving lesson for them to come up with ways of finding all the outcomes themselves.
Thanks to helbel11 for this. She has got a version of it up on TES which I like and it gave me the idea...It's very good. However, after I'd downloaded it I decided to make it a little easier for one of my classes. Hence the attached which has simpler experiments for the students to investigate.
This is just a picture of a brain on A4. You write the topic title or the question on the left and then print out. (You could duplicate the page and then print both onto A4 so each is A5). Each student then fills it with what they know. e.g.
**At the start of a lesson to recall everything they remember from yesterday, etc.
**During the lesson to summarize or capture all the key information from e.g. a presentation or fact sheet.
**At the end of the lesson to recap everything they've learnt.
I've edited the picture of the brain to make it easier to write on with less bits to fill in. The student's can order their writing around the brain in any order they choose.
It's not my idea and I've not use it yet so interested in any feedback.
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Posters for the new specification GCSE to help your students understand what it is expected of them (and for you to help you remember what's what!)
If you like this then please check out my many other Maths activities listed on my TES Resources shop and pages including many Premium resources which may be able to save you lots of time and give you some useful ideas. If you find this helpful then please do leave a constructive review so that others can benefit from your experience. Thank you.
Fun exercise for many age ranges. Will provide a good amount of discussion and is a nice next step after estimating and experimental probabilities.
Originally I used this as one short activity in a "Circus" of many activities which students go around the room playing on. (More of my Circus Activities are uploaded on my TES resources elsewhere).
There are several versions of the task here which you can adapt for your learners. The basic idea is that you give a sheet of card with a grid printed onto it. Players roll coins on to the card and if the coins land so that the side sides of the coin are not touching the sides they win. One idea is you give them a variety of size grids (e.g. grid A and grid B) where the coins do or don't fit in easily.
I prepare a set of game boards (A & B) for each pair of students and give them a money bag with 7 plastic toy coins in (1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1). You could use real money or even £2 coins if you have them.
2p is a large coin but isn't worth much so its makes it hard to win, but if you only win your stake back then you don't win much.
£2 is a large coin and is worth lots so its makes it hard to win, but if you only win your stake back then you win loads.
If you are doing this as a 10 minute circus activity then keep it simple. If you are doing it as a more extended piece of work then use the updated task sheet which asks the students to work out how to make the most money. Higher students will need encouragement to keep the game rules simple. Lower students will need encouragement to keep it really simple. You may choose to give them a reduced version of the problem.
You can see that I then for the next lesson typed their suggestions into a worksheet which they then started the next lesson by answering the worksheet. I think there is a lot of potential here to really develop the idea of how to test the games... e.g. they need to try 100 goes with each size coin, etc.
The activity certainly gets them discussing whether games are 'attractive' to play and so will bring in more money. The students usually feel that a high prize will make people want to play - even if the game is difficult to win. You could easily extend this activity into GCSE level maths to work out the profits possible.
Currently we are all about achieving mastery in Maths at our school. An INSET course gave me some descriptors for the different levels. A moment of enlightenment :) gave me the idea of using Po the Kung Fu Panda as the ideal character as he is on his way to achieving Mastery like Grand Master Oogway.
The Grade descriptors PPT give a poster to display for learners to understand where they are going. (The SMART notebook is just the creation file for the image in case you wish to change it slightly).
I've used the SkiRoute differentiation for some time. The idea is that you grade questions or tasks in difficulty and then you either tell your learners which level to choose or allow them to choose themselves. They obviously aspire to be able to do the black route hardest questions and it gives them a sense of achievement when they can.
Another idea I've been using is asking them to write their own questions which can be then used to give to the rest of the class. This seems to work quite well as an end of lesson plenary as it can give a really good indication of what level they are confident at. It also gives you a great opportunity to write a positive comment and then an action task challenge for the learner to respond to at the start of the next lesson. See attached sticker example.
This is an absolutely quality resource which I'm really chuffed with. It totally ticks loads of boxes for what is expected in our lessons - group work, discussion, mastery, self choice, differentiated, etc.
It uses elements of Connect, Arrange, Classify, Reduce and Act it Out of the Magenta Principles.
Here are 21 statements about Pythagoras which are either TRUE, FALSE or SOMETIMES TRUE .
They are appropriate for any students who have learnt how to do long side, then short side questions and mixed combination two-step questions.
The activity is designed to be a MATHS MASTERY activity where they consolidate their learning and prove that they understand and can explain their understanding.
The statements are graded in difficulty using "SkiRouteCodes" from Green, Blue, Red and Black. Students can choose which grade question to answer themselves or you could suggest their choices. The grades are slightly subjective (I wrote 21 out questions and then tried to sort them into the four grades). I have written a set of suggested solutions. Do let me know if I have made any errors with these.
You will note that I set work out to print onto label stickers. This saves the students time and helps keep the exercise books tidier. There is a header label, then the questions on labels and a set of solutions. I've also included the SkiRoute choices labels. There is also another copy of the Questions not on stickers to make it easier for you to adapt them.
I have also added in a copy of the questions ready for printing onto card and cutting up. You would then give the whole set out to a small group who would use the TRUEFALSEHEADER to catagorise all the cards.
One of the Magenta Principles is to reduce so there is an activity to reduce the pythag definition to as few words as possible.
Another one of the Magenta Principles is to "Act it Out" so you will find a task sticker for that along with a Storyboard template.
To show "Maths Mastery" students need to be able to explain what they do. The last three resources are a series of questions on sticky labels. Students can choose (self-differentiate) which questions to answer. The LO label is also there to go above the sticker. A set of the questions just as a worksheet is also included. No answers are included as it's difficult to write solutions for these. I would normally set these as the last activity of the lesson and then I would mark them after the lesson. Next lesson they could then start with responding to what improvement feedback I gave them.
The True False cards also have a PowerPoint presentation which is good to display and discuss each one in turn with the group.
Thanks to tsyczynski another valued TES contributor for this. I really liked his idea of the homework tasks. I've just adapted it to fit in with our current theme of child labour in Victorian factories and I've given it to my class as an extended project task for a couple of afternoon lessons where we've got quite a few extra-curricular activities going on.
This is what they said about doing this kind of task:
"It's good to let your imagination flow"
"It's more fun"
"It's good to make something"
" I like choosing what to do"
If you like this then please check out my many other activities listed on my TES Resources shop and pages including many Premium resources which may be able to save you lots of time and give you some useful ideas.
If you find this helpful then please leave a constructive review. Thank you.
I've done this activity as part of circus of many activities in a lesson (Other circus activities listed on my TES Resources shop and pages) but you can make a whole lesson out of this depending on what you are trying to achieve.
If you find it useful please leave a helpful review. Thank you.
Activity designed to give further practice (Maths Mastery) of line of best fit on scatter graphs after initial teaching and practice. Particularly to reinforce what happens when there is no correlation.
Twenty seven slides on the PowerPoint. Each slide shows a scatter graph which either has correlation or hasn't. If it has correlation then a line of best fit can be drawn and the degree or strength of the correlation can be suggested (Note that at this level it is a subjective judgement so answers may vary).
The graphs are simply ones found using a internet image search, but I've done the work for you to save you the time.
There is a matching PowerPoint which has my suggested solutions on.
I rearranged the order of the slides on the PowerPoint on the Print version (attached) and then printed out pages 1-6, then 7-12, and so on so that six graphs were on each sheet of A4 (using the handout feature of PowerPoint). This means that you now have four worksheets which are all slightly different so that every student on your tables of four has a different set of questions - hence less copying. The answers to the four sheets I made are attached as a PDF.
This is a good activity which did meet the objective of reinforcing the LOBF skills.
If you like this then please check out my many other Maths activities listed on my TES Resources shop and pages including many Premium resources which may be able to save you lots of time and give you some useful ideas. If you find this helpful then please do leave a constructive review so that others can benefit from your experience. Thank you.
All the key words I think my (Y7) class need for looking at Divisibility.
There are two resources:
>The cards are ready for printing out on card and then cutting out to use for card match table collaborative group exercise. Top Tip - get them to place the keywords in alphabetical order to match your answer sheet!
> The worksheet is simply a copy for them to stick into their exercise books as notes. Get them to highlight all the key bits which are important to them. Use a copy of this for checking the answers on the card match.
The cards can be printed out onto three different colour cards which make it easier for them to match a key word with its definition and the example.
If you have time it would be worth grouping the keywords into difficulty levels and then only giving a subset to the lower ability tables or middle ability tables. Alternatively do what I'm going to do and give a full card set to each mixed ability tables.
Activity designed to reinforce, consolidate and master understanding of scatter graphs.
Attached is a list of 25 statements (25QTrueFalseScatterGraphsQuestions.rtf) which are either true, false or something in between. The questions are graded where the first 5 are the roughly the easiest, next 5 are harder and so on. Each has a suggested answer, a explanation and a tip for giving the student a little bit more to think about (25TrueFalseScatterGraphsQ-A).
How can you use this?
a) Give the set of 25 cards (25QTrueFalseScatterGraphsCards) to each table and then ask them to sort them into the categories of true, false, etc . (using the header cards - 4 versions to choose from). Discuss their choices and justify them. You could easily reduce the number of cards for lower ability tables or if in ability tables only given them just the easier cards. (You can see that I have done this with a subset of just 12 questions) but you may wish to pick off your own selection.
b) Give each student a TrueFalseScatterGraphsQQT.docx card and allow them to roam the room choosing a partner to "Quiz Quiz Trade" with. i.e. they read the statement to their partner. Their partner then suggests the answer and then is given the solution after a little discussion. Then they do the same for the other partner and then swap cards and then go and find someone else. you can give all the cards out according to ability and then say that you can only pair up with another student who has a same grade question (1 to 5) or a question of a grade one higher or one lower than you.
c) Display the statements on the projection screen (25QuestionsTrueFalsePPT) and have the class discuss the answers together.
This could be followed up by the students picking one statement and writing their explanation and justification into their exercise books. You can further extend the activity by asking students to choose a false statement and then writing it again so it becomes true.
If you spot any errors then please let me know asap. This is based on the work from lauramathswilson - another valued TES resources contributor - thank you to her for sharing it. I liked her idea and decided to develop it slightly to make it a collaborative table activity. I had actually seen the idea of doing true false for scatter graphs on a KS3 SAT paper (it's the last part on a L6 question on a non-calculator paper about Poplar trees) but lauramathswilson has taken it much further nicely.
If you like this then please check out my many other Maths activities listed on my TES Resources shop and pages including many Premium resources which may be able to save you lots of time and give you some useful ideas. If you find this helpful then please do leave a constructive review so that others can benefit from your experience. Thank you.