A task based on card shuffling from QI from a video posted on Twitter by @bobloch. What possible order could the cards be in in each case?

Show it for 20 seconds then they have to remember it exactly. I put the picture of me on there so they would concentrate on their reproduction rather than staring around the room, but feel free to change it to a picture of your choice!

In this activity various cartoon characters have been transformed - can the students describe each transformation?

Choose one of the 6 options and then say what happens next when solving the equation. I used a template (with permission!) for the music from the excellent resource written by DanielBurke - check his resources out as they are top quality. The animations are little clunky, but do the job - I'm sure you could all make it look like Avatar! If you find the answers already on the slide then powerpoint has messed up the animations. Just contact me and I can send you my version.

The idea is Mr Barton's, but this is my probability contribution. Show for 30 seconds, they then get down what they can remember. Show a few times until they think they&'ve finished then check their against yours. Simples!

A student gave me the title (pun on 'The Hunger Games' - original was 'The Number Games'), I did the rest. Five different sets of questions in a functional style for students to work through either individually or in pairs/teams.

With the new curriculum in mind I did this. Students must use their knowledge of parallel and perpendicular lines to fill in blanks but this could lead to discussions about different ways to write equations of lines etc. Errant negative signs on number 4 corrected (I hope).

Five HCF and LCM functional questions using the characters from Phineas and Ferb. All put together in a PowerPoint and including answers. Now with a link to the Phineas and Ferb theme tune! Typos corrected.

This is designed to lead students through solving quadratic equations by completing the square from quite basic to difficult. The activity is also there to encourage discussion in class and helps them get into good habits regarding setting their solutions out.

Three spiders on transformations (both describing and drawing) that getting increasingly challenging from spider 1 to spider 3. Spider 1 contains reflections in the x and y axes, translations and rotations about the origin. Spider 2 contains reflections in horizontal and vertical lines (x=n or y=n), rotations around points away from the origin, and an enlargement. Spider 3 contains reflections in diagonal lines (y=-x), roattions away from the origin and fractional and negative enlargements where the centre is not the origin. They should encourage discussion and I hope the diagrams are large enough (they are as large as I can make them).

The aim of this is as a starter or plenary but could be used as a class activity. This activity is designed to get students thinking and discussing properties of number. The aim is to allow students to show what they do/don't know and understand. I have two versions: one where students find the number given the properties and vice versa which I suspect will create more discussion. There will be extra properties I've left out on purpose. There is a blank to make up your own too.

This is designed as a starter, plenary or a discussion exercise. There are four "explosions" to work through and I have given you the choice of the students working out the shapes from the properties or finding the properties given the shape. This moves from triangles and quadrilaterals to polygons to 3D shapes. Some shapes have the same property so link to the same cloud. This has been designed to check understanding and to give some the opportunity to expand on properties. I have not included all properties of all shapes to naturally generate discussion and differentiation.

This is a matching activity on bounds (it does what it says on the tin?), including the potential error in calculations. Ideal for a starter or plenary and should hopefully generate discussion and enable students to demonstrate understanding.

This is an activity taking students through nth terms of arithmetic sequences, summing arithmetic sequences and nth terms of quadratic sequences. Different pieces of information are given each time to ensure that students develop understanding rather than get in a rut and performing a process. This should lead to discussion in class between students and teacher.

Eight matching activities, getting increasingly difficult, on various different formulae to rearrange. These are designed as plenaries or starters and should encourage discussion.

This is a set of 6 sheets of increasingly difficult simultaneous equations designed to make students think and discuss how to work through their solutions by giving them different parts of the process. They include simultaneous equations that involve a linear and a non-linear equation. This is also designed to stretch at GCSE or could be used at the start of A level.

Four matchings getting increasingly difficult at they go Firstly spot the correct formula for the correct triangle, the next two calculate a missing side and finally use Pythagoras to find the area of a shape. These have been designed to be used as starters or plenaries but you could use them as a main lesson activity; up to you.

This takes students through basic shapes (rectangles and triangles) to trapeziums and parallelograms and finally circles, including compound shapes. I use these as starters or plenaries but use them how you like.

A set of six spiders which encourage students to show every stage of their calculations as they tackle increasingly difficult questions. There are also some question where the answer is given and the workings shown so that students can work backwards; this is designed to avoid students getting stuck in a rut and not thinking about what they are doing in each case.

Six matchings involving set notation and shading Venn diagrams. Hopefully these will encourage discussion in the classroom and they are designed as starters or plenaries where students, since most of the answers are there, are encouraged to try harder problems than they might normally do.