Difficult magic square puzzles requiring pupils to be very good at adding fractions.

A brilliant Tarsia activity by Gill Hillitt on quadratic inequalities. These type of activities can be used to consolidate understanding of a given topic, and foster positive group work and co-operative learning. For more ideas on how to use these types of activities (including twists!) and to download the latest version of the wonderful free software to open this resource (and create your own), just click on the web-link. If you have any comments or feedback for Gill, please share them below.

A set of Starter Cards on powerpoint from the wonderful liverpool maths team. The idea is that you print out the cards, laminate them, and use the prompts on the back to engage the pupils in a stimulating discussion.

A set of Starter Cards on powerpoint from the wonderful liverpool maths team. The idea is that you print out the cards, laminate them, and use the prompts on the back to engage the pupils in a stimulating discussion.

This is a rich Venn Diagram activity on Probability, including work with fractions. To access all the Venn Diagram activities in this collection, as well as teaching notes, please visit: http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/venn.htm Here is why I love Venn Diagram activities so much: 1) Students can always make a start. If they can think of a number/expression/object or whatever it might be, it has to go in one of the regions on the diagram, so they are up and running 2) The more regions student find, the more challenging the task gets, which adds a nice element of differentiation 3) They are incredibly versatile, and can be used for almost all maths topics for all ages and abilities 4) They are easy to tweak by simply changing one of the circle labels if you find they are too difficult/easy 5) Students can create their own as an extension task I hope you and your students enjoy them.

A Tarsia activity on the equations of circles. These type of activities can be used to consolidate understanding of a given topic, and foster positive group work and co-operative learning. For more ideas on how to use these types of activities (including twists!) and to download the latest version of the wonderful free software to open this resource (and create your own), just click on the web-link. If you have any comments, or spot any (non deliberate!) mistakes, please share them below. Many thanks to all the teachers who have helped me assemble these Tarsias over the years.

“Build an Army” is a fun, strategy game that can be used to consolidate understanding of key mathematical concepts. After students have played the game and described their strategy, there are opportunities for differentiation via various lines of inquiry and probing questions for the students to investigate. Full instructions are provided in the “General Rules” PowerPoint. To find more Build an Army activities, just visit: http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/buildanarmy.htm

This a rich, Arithmagon activity on Adding Fractions. I love Arithmagons as they allow consolidation of key topics when going Forwards, and then opportunities for extension, creativity and discovery when working Backwards. They are also really easy to modify to suit the particular needs of your class. For all the Arithmagon activities in this series, together with teaching notes and extra information, please visit http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/arithmagon.htm

given a random starting number, students must substitute into a variety of linked expressions. comes in two levels of difficulty and clicking the boxes gives the answers

A different way of teaching negative numbers using... sandcastles! Quite a nice visual way of thinking about it.

Pupils are faced with a series of questions and answers and they must decide if they are correct or not. highlights some important misconceptions.

A brilliant Tarsia activity by Gill Hillitt on arithmetic and geometric progressions. These type of activities can be used to consolidate understanding of a given topic, and foster positive group work and co-operative learning. For more ideas on how to use these types of activities (including twists!) and to download the latest version of the wonderful free software to open this resource (and create your own), just click on the web-link. If you have any comments or feedback for Gill, please share them below.

A nice activity demonstrating tesselations.

Have a play around with this task, and please share any questions, extensions, simplifications, modifications, or lines of inquiry in the comment box below. The idea is to collect loads of suggestions that can then be used for effective differentiation. The full set of these tasks, along with additional notes, can be found here: http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/probing-maths-questions-index-page/

A brilliant Tarsia activity by Gill Hillitt on factorising quadratics. These type of activities can be used to consolidate understanding of a given topic, and foster positive group work and co-operative learning. For more ideas on how to use these types of activities (including twists!) and to download the latest version of the wonderful free software to open this resource (and create your own), just click on the web-link. If you have any comments or feedback for Gill, please share them below.

“Build an Army” is a fun, strategy game that can be used to consolidate understanding of key mathematical concepts. After students have played the game and described their strategy, there are opportunities for differentiation via various lines of inquiry and probing questions for the students to investigate. Full instructions are provided in the “General Rules” PowerPoint. To find more Build an Army activities, just visit: http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/buildanarmy.htm

This edexcel activity generates lots of variations of single bracket algebra questions to practice. Suitable for KS3 and KS4 students.

A nice set of cards to be used as a revision starter.

A Tarsia activity on Place Value. These type of activities can be used to consolidate understanding of a given topic, and foster positive group work and co-operative learning. For more ideas on how to use these types of activities (including twists!) and to download the latest version of the wonderful free software to open this resource (and create your own), just click on the web-link. If you have any comments, or spot any (non deliberate!) mistakes, please share them below. Many thanks to all the teachers who have helped me assemble these Tarsias over the years.

A brief summary of all the trig formulae needed for c3.