A simple game to give students some practice of algebraic substitution. Due to the competitive element and using dice, I find that students quite enjoy it! Students roll a die - the number rolled is their x value. They substitute their x value into one of the expressions on the grid - the answer is the number of points they score this round. Play then passes to the next student who repeats the process (although they can’t pick any algebraic expressions that have already been chosen).

As there isn’t any new content to learn when studying Surds in Year 12, I wanted to find a way to make my lesson a bit more interesting - hence this relay. I’ll let my students get stuck into this straight away (in teams) so I discover what they can/can’t do - far better than standing at the front teaching them things they already know! Questions are differentiated by difficulty (1, 2 and 3 stars). The questions are in a completely random order, so Question 20 (for example) isn’t necessarily harder than Question 8. I’ve included answers, and I’ve also included the Word version of the relay in case you want to make any changes, e.g. if you disagree with my difficulty rating!

A way to make solving equations a bit more interesting! Students have to pick 2 of the algebraic expressions and set them equal to each other. They then solve the equation they’ve created, and hope the answer is one of the targets on the right hand side of the page. If not, they create another equation! When I use this in my lessons, I say the first person to create an equation with a target answer gets to “claim” that answer and gets their name on the board. I find the students are really motivated by this, and do a lot more practice than they usually would! Possible solutions are provided.

I really liked Don Steward’s task on equable parallelograms (https://donsteward.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/equable-parallelograms.html) but wanted some questions that were a little bit easier for my Year 10 group, so I designed these. In each of paralleograms on the sheet, the area is equal to the perimeter. Students should use this fact to set up an equation, which they can solve to find the value of the unknown. Solutions are provided.

My attempt at making practice of multiplying and dividing negative numbers a little more interesting! Students are given completed multiplication grids - but the numbers around the outside (which can be negative or positive) are missing. Students have to work out where the numbers should go to give the completed grid. Solutions are provided.

A Tarsia puzzle (jigsaw puzzle) on finding the nth term of Quadratic Sequences. Pieces need to be cut out, and students have to work out the nth term of each sequence, and match it with the answer. I wasn’t able to upload the Tarsia file itself, so you can’t make any edits unfortunately. There is a pdf document of the puzzle, and the solution is also included.

I like to use the grid method for expanding double brackets, and then I use the grid method “in reverse” to factorise non-monic quadratics. To introduce this idea of working “in reverse”, I created these 2 worksheets. Students are already given the four terms inside the grid, and they have to determine what the brackets around the outside must be.

Inspired by “The Simple Life” - a task from Colin Foster: https://nrich.maths.org/13207 I wanted a simpler version to suit my weaker group. Students are given a variety of algebraic expressions in the form a(bx + c) and must pick 2 to add up. They are given 8 answers to aim for. Possible solutions are provided - there may be other solutions, I’m not really sure!

I wanted a resource where students had to factorise monic quadratics that only had positive terms, so I created this task. Students factorise each of the given quadratics into double brackets. They cross off each bracket in the grid at the bottom of the page - each bracket appears multiple times, but it doesn’t matter which one they cross off. Once students have factorised every quadratic, their grids will probably all look different, but they will all have 8 letters left that weren’t crossed off that can be re-arranged to spell BUDAPEST.

A task designed to make simplifying algebraic fractions a little more interesting. Students are given 24 expressions and must use them to create 12 algebraic fractions (no repeats). The aim is to create 12 algebraic fractions that can all be simplified. I’ve provided a solution to show it is possible, but there may be more than one solution! I’ve used this with a Year 12 class but it could also be suitable for able KS4.

Designed for Higher GCSE Students to review their knowledge of equations of straight lines, in particular finding the equation: Between 2 points When given the gradient and a point When given a parallel line and a point Also requires an understanding of the relationship between the gradients of two lines that are perpendicular. In each line of the table, students are given some of the information about a straight line - and have to fill in the missing information!

Used with an able Year 10 group as a way to revise factorising into single brackets. Students are given a partially completed multiplication grid with algebra, and must deduce what expressions go in the remaining boxes. As a starting point, look at the 3rd column: by factorising 6x + 8 and 15x + 20, we deduce that (3x + 4) must go at the top of this column. Solutions are provided.

A Tarsia activity to help students become familiar with function notation f(x), by substituting values into functions, composite functions, and inverse functions. There are 16 pieces to the puzzle - students substitute values into functions and match that piece up to its answer on another card. When completed, the 16 pieces form a square. To make things a bit more challenging, some functions do not have an answer to match with - these will go around the outside of the completed square. The 3 functions f(x), g(x) and h(x) that students need to complete the puzzle are in the PNG file - these can be projected onto the whiteboard while students work. Note that I haven’t provided students with the Inverse Functions - students must derive them on their own. Sadly, I was not able to upload the Tarsia file itself, just a pdf version, so you cannot make any edits yourself.

A quick (less than 30 mins) investigation that I did with my Year 7s on Semiprimes.

In each block of the maze, students are given a value and a percentage they should decrease it by. An answer is given (the large number in each block). Students try to find a way through the maze, left to right, that only goes through correct answers (moving diagonally is not allowed!). Solutions provided.

A presentation I designed to help me deliver the “Number Families” task from nrich (https://nrich.maths.org/13123). Rather than jumping straight in to set notation, it starts off getting pupils to list what they know about certain numbers. Then they imagine that numbers that share a certain property can be placed in the same “bucket”. This idea of a “bucket” is then used to introduce set notation.

An activity that gets pupils to practise division problems where the answer is a decimal, a skill which is motivated by a need to find approximations to the irrational number pi. There are 3 different levels of questions for pupils to attempt. Some of the questions really are quite challenging!

This is very similar to the excellent activity from danielabbott89 - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/mean-from-a-frequency-table-amazon-reviews-6323431 However, the products in that resource are now a bit out of date, so I wanted to make a resource that would have a bit more longevity. Students have to work out the average (mean) rating given by Amazon users to various products - the data is real! The data is presented as a frequency table. Solutions are provided (to 2 decimal places). A good resource to use in a poster-making lesson!

A Treasure Hunt on converting fractions to decimals and vice versa. Print off the questions and place them around the classroom. Students pick a starting point, answer the question and look for their answer at the top of a different card - this tells them which question to answer next. If they’re correct, they should end up back at their starting point after completing 20 questions. The number in the top right of each card is the question number. The solution is provided.

A couple of activities on Frequency Trees (aimed at KS3). The worksheets are provided in pdf and Word, in case you want to make any edits. Solutions are provided. In “complete using the clues”, students are given 3 blank frequency trees, and 4 clues to go with each. They must use the clues to fill in each frequency tree. This requires some basic knowledge of fractions of amounts and ratio. In “true or false”, students are given a partially completed frequency tree and must fill in the remainder - this requires some basic number facts. Using their completed frequency tree, they must then decide which of the 13 statements at the bottom of the page are true. This will require some knowledge of fractions of amounts, percentages of amounts, and ratio.