I needed something for a class just being introduced to manipulating formulae/algebra so I produced this… The usual: do the maths, reveal the punchline.

If the answer is above 1 colour in the question number, if it's below 1 then leave it blank. It links to Thompson Twin's 'Love On Your Side' purely because it&'s a great song!

This idea is from Craig Barton and is an excellent one (check them out his at website); essentially it is four questions based on the same information. There are four here which use fractions, percentages, probability, ratio, volume, money, upper and lower bounds, speed, standard form as well as other topics. This really should create discussion and a deeper understanding of the topics covered on top of ensuring that students actually read the question. I hope these are worthy! I will be using these as starters or plenaries.

Find the letters upon which the shapes land on and uncover the joke on a fish theme. These are popular (no matter the quality of the joke) in both online and in-person lessons.

Find the areas of some parallelograms, trapeziums, compound shapes and circles as well as working backwards to calculate a dimension to discover a really lame fish pun/joke (a generous description in this case). Ideal for class task, online task or a homework.

Two fish-related jokes to find: one for factorising and one for completing the square/using the quadratic formula. These work nicely in class, online or as a homework.

There are six “spiders” each with four increasingly challenging quadratics to solve, including completing the square and using the quadratic formula. Different blanks are left for students to fill in, working forwards to the solutions, backwards from the solutions, from partially complete questions and a mixture of all three. These have been very useful in online lessons.

Problems involving fractions basically; unjumble the letters to discover the cheesy joke.

This is designed to prevent students from being entirely reliant on their calculators, although there are some where a calculator can be used. It’s the usual stuff: answer the questions and reveal a fish/sea creature-related joke. Useful in class, online or as a homework.

Ten questions, each answers by four “students” but only one has got the answer correct; your class’ task is to work out where the other three went wrong. This is designed to be done as a starter or plenary and to create mathematical discussion but you can use them however you like obviously.

Three diagrams and ten statements or angles that students need to state whether they are true or false. This could lead to nice discussions in class or in live online lessons.

This is an attempt to make rearranging equations accessible in real-life.

This (hopefully) shows how your skills at factorising and solving quadratics can enable you to solve other non-linear equations. Initially students must solve three straightforward quadratic equations, then look at a number of other equations that are linked to them, using their initial answers to help solve the more complex equations. This moves on to solving more complex equations. This could be a bridging resource between GCSE and A Level as it involves trigonometric and exponential equations.

I was really struggling for a symmetry homework so I wrote this involving line and rotational symmetry, plus a QR code that links to a video that I found on YouTube in case the students get stuck. Nothing flashy just 3 questions.

This is nothing fancy whatsoever, just 5 sets of data to calculate the mean, median, mode and range from. There are two context questions and finally one frequency table to calculate averages from.

Given one coordinate, can students come up with a second coordinate so that the line between the two meets certain criteria? This is an activity designed to create discussion, covering gradient and equations of lines. Extension should be pretty easy, allowing students to generate equations of lines etc. I have left a slide template so that you can create your own if you wish.

The usual colour in when (the coefficient of x is) even but leave blank when odd. This involves very basic simplifying up to multiplying out brackets. Links to Madonna's 'Express Yourself'.

Find the equations of the asymptotes that the players hit ball along. As a freelance baseball mathematician you need to tell their opponents where not to place fielders.

This is an attempt to get students to fill out every stage of their rearranging process. There are six relatively basic questions then three more challenge on the reverse of the page (I did this so that I could decide whether they were suitable for certain classes).

I saw this picture on Twitter and thought that there must be some maths in it and came up with this. I'm sure you will all come up with better stuff than me but this is what I came up with on a Saturday morning!