A collection of challenging but interesting starter questions.

A little starter testing pupils' knowledge of basic algebraic misconceptions in simplifying, multiplying and factorizing algebraic terms. The PowerPoint is only one slide and is great as a starter or plenary for KS3 and KS4 students.

Great as a starter or activity to consolidate learning, encourages peer assessment. Laminate and cut out these Snap cards. Pupils share out the cards and play snap in the usual way. The winner is the one who gets all the cards. If someone says snap incorrectly, the other person gets the cards.

Generates an infinite number of simple tree diagrams, both with replacement and without.

This is a rich Venn Diagram activity on Averages and Range, including mean, median, mode and range. 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 good challenge that tests knowledge of rotation, reflection and translation.

A set of match up cards for testing pupils' knowledge of the chain rule.

A Collective Memory activity on Metric and Imperial Measures for KS3. Good activity for group work. This one contains missing answers. For more information and ideas about how to use this resource, and links to my full index of Collective Memory resources, please visit http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/collectivememory.htm

A visual proof of why the angles in a triangle sum to 180 degrees.

Finding the Volume and Surface Area of a Cuboid: an interactive activity to help students explore cuboids. A flash file that allows students to practice and better visualise how to work out the volume and surface area of cuboids. Suitable for KS3 and KS4 students.

This is a very simple PPt exercise introducing students how to find the gradient of straight lines with examples. Ideal for KS3 and KS4 students.

Change data values and see the effect on the cumulative frequency diagram. Allows you to work out the median as well!

Number Level 5 A simple excel file that produces random 'percentage of amount' questions and then provides the answers

This is a “Tarsia: Convince Me” activity on operations with negative numbers Unlike standard Tarsia activities, here you only need to print out the solution (included on the PowerPoint), and students must: 1. Find (at least) 5 incorrectly matched up elements, convince you that each one is incorrect explaining the mistake that has been made, and then decide what the answer should have been 2. Replace the ? with the correct answer 3. Come up with a question to replace ?? that could give the answer. A selection of these questions can then be given to other students to use as a rich, challenging, pupil-created homework. To access all my updated Tarsia jigsaw activities, including the Convince Me series, as well as teacher notes and more, please visit http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/jigsaw.htm

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/richtasks.htm

Match up the shape with its area to create a loop.

The cards to accompany the above bingo game.

A Collective Memory activity on types and properties of quadrilaterals. For more information and ideas about how to use this resource, and links to my full index of Collective Memory resources, please visit http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/collectivememory.htm

Pupils join up co-ordiantes to get a picture.

A Tarsia activity on the laws of indices. 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.