“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

“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

“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

A Tarsia jigsaw activity with a difference, kindly shared by Gill Hillitt. Unlike traditional Tarsia activities, this one is accompanied by a sheet of additional information containing a variety of data sets presented in different ways. Students must interpret the data and statistical diagrams (including two way tables and stem and leaf), and use their answers to complete the jigsaw. This is a nice way of revising the key data handling components of GCSE. For more information about Tarsia, click on the web link.

A Tarsia jigsaw activity with a difference, kindly shared by Gill Hillitt. Unlike traditional Tarsia activities, this one is accompanied by a sheet of additional information containing a variety of data sets presented in different ways. Students must interpret the data and statistical diagrams (including histogram and cumulative frequency), and use their answers to complete the jigsaw. This is a nice way of revising the key data handling components of GCSE. For more information about Tarsia, click on the web link.

A Tarsia jigsaw activity with a difference, kindly shared by Gill Hillitt. Unlike traditional Tarsia activities, this one is accompanied by a sheet of additional information containing a variety of data sets presented in different ways. Students must interpret the data and statistical diagrams (including histogram and stem and leaf), and use their answers to complete the jigsaw. This is a nice way of revising the key data handling components of GCSE. For more information about Tarsia, click on the web link.

A free online Autograph Player activity that allows students to use Autograph's gradient function to discover one of the most important numbers in mathematics - Euler&'s number (e). You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

A free online Autograph Player activity that challenges students to predict the number of distinct planes of symmetry of this cuboid. Can they then discover the equations of these planes? You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

A free online Autograph Player activity that allows students to discover the rules for finding the gradient function of quadratic equations. You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

A free online Autograph Player activity that challenges students to investigate a very interesting property of quadratic curves. Can your students prove this? You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

Throughout the academic year of 2011 to 2012, each week I have taken viewers on a very quick tour of some of my favourite mathematical websites. I have tried to find new ways of using the familiar names, and also attempted to uncover some hidden gems along the way. And what a collection of websites they have been! We have seen websites to spice up every conceivable topic, from statistics to algebra, using everything from top trumps to sampling hip-hop tracks. In this video we take a look back at some of the websites featured in this year’s WebWhizz video collection.

It’s that time of year again. Your exam classes have left, reports are written, parents evenings are over, and maybe (just maybe) you can start to relax a little and look forward to the promise of the long summer holiday. But before all of that, you still have some lessons to teach! Myself and the TES Maths Panel have put together the following Collection of resources to help you in these last few weeks of term. If you are up for trying something a bit different in your maths lessons, then hopefully you will find something to tickle your fancy in amongst these ten lovely resources.

Here is a quick idea for an activity that should help your learners practise identifying the equation of a line from the points that lie on it. A line is constructed, and a point attached to it, but the line is then hidden! Can your students figure out the equation of the line by moving the point up and down? Can they work out the gradient? You about the y-intercept? Fire up the turtle and test out their answer!

Kangaroo Maths is a website that is quite literally bursting with free, high-quality content. In this video we barely scratch the surface, focussing on three excellent series of resources: Bring on the Maths – rich, classroom activities to challenge students’ misconceptions; Convinced – a series of worksheets that push students’ understanding of a topic; and Maths to Infinity – high quality Excel worksheets to generate as many questions as you could possible desire. Thank you Kenny the Kangaroo!

All good things must come to an end, and the same is also true for our Autograph Trigonometric Trilogy! In this final video we go out with a bang by taking a look at how we can use Autograph to test students’ understanding of the classic isosceles triangle questions that seem to be a favourite of the examiners. Can students use their knowledge of sin, cos and tan in right-angled triangles to solve these problems?

The website Wordle came to prominence in around 2009, and has been popping up at conferences, lectures and around the display boards of schools ever since. In this video we take a look at how to use the website, and more importantly how we can use it effectively in the maths classroom. Ideas suggested include using it to summarise examiners reports, to capture the key topics that your class find difficult, and then as a starter activity to introduce a new topic. This is only scratching the surface of the potential of Wordle, so if you have any ideas on how it can be used, please share below!

The second of the Trigonometric Trilogy! Following on from last week’s work, we take a look at how we can use Autograph to help students practise finding the sizes of missing angles in right-angled triangles using Trigonometry. The advantage of doing this on Autograph is you can easily generate as many examples as you want and quickly check the students’ answers. One more part to come next week…

A free online Autograph Player activity designed to allow your students to practise solving trigonometry problems (missing sides and angles) involving isosceles triangles. You can use this activity on the interactive whiteboard, or for your students to investigate on their own. Autograph does not need to be installed to use this activity (so your students can even use it at home), but you will need to install the free Autograph Player add-on (instructions given after clicking the link). For a full list of Autograph Activities, please click on the other web-link.

This website may well be unfamiliar to some of you, but it needs to go right to the top of your favourites list, because it is brilliant! There is a wealth of high-quality resources, covering all the important topics, beautifully organised. There are videos, random question generators, and embedded Geogebra and Autograph activities that run straight from page. An excellent website that you and your students will get a lot out of. Congratulations and many thanks to Dan Clark for creating it!

The first of the Trigonometric Trilogy! In this week’s video we take a look at a clever way of using Autograph to practice working out the length of missing sides using Trigonometry (sin, cos and tan) and Pythagoras. We begin by constructing a right-angled triangle, and then use a sneaky technique to cover up a measurement. The finished article can then be used in class or at home for infinite trigonometry practice! More on this next week!