Answer some questions involving negative numbers in context and reveal a joke involving or related to fish. These work well in the classroom as a starter or main task but also online or as a homework. The students seem to enjoy the challenge of discovering the corny joke too!

State the inequalities that bound the shaded region and discover the punchline to the fish-related gag. These seem to work either in a classroom, online or as a homework task, encouraging some competition for those who enjoy it.

Four sheets where there are 6 questions but 10 potential answers; students are reassured by the answers being on the sheet allow the teacher to get on with helping those who require it. The sheets get increasingly difficult; I tend to use these as starters or as an initial task straight after the explanation.

Five worksheets with fewer questions than answers given allowing students to start and be reassured if their answer appears in the list of potential solutions allowing teacher to help those who really need it. The sheets get increasingly challenging from simplifying, basic rationalising, calculating, expanding brackets and rationalising “full on”!

Solve the simultaneous equations and reveal the joke; ideal for either in class, online or as a homework task. The students like the competition of unveiling the punchline first.

Yet another fish pun (this one was made up by me!) involving expanding and simplifying two brackets with surds. Students seem to like these in all setting and I have used these in the classroom, during online lessons and as a homework so they are pretty versatile.

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.

Another fish pun/gag solved by solving the (linear) simultaneous equations graphically. In each case one of the lines is drawn (although it is not clear which one so students will have to work that out too) and they have to draw the other. These work nicely in class, online or as homework and the groans over the jokes are a wonder to experience!

Use the histogram shown to work out whether the statements are true or false in order to cut the wires and save the world!

Two more fish jokes to decipher: one on set notation and one on Venn diagrams. These have worked well for me both in the classroom and online with others using them as homework tasks.

Shade the appropriate areas of the Venn diagrams given the sets listed to reveal the punchline to a joke.

A mixture of finding and using the nth term of arithmetic sequences in order to reveal a punchline to a joke. These work in class, online and as homework as they offer a bit of competition but also reassure students as words are revealed.

Two fish jokes to reveal: one is trigonometry in right-angled triangles and one is either Pythagoras or trigonometry. These are always popular with my classes and I’ve used them in class and online but I know colleagues have used them as homeworks.

Calculate the cost of the items required using the deals advertised. Reveal a cheesy joke, the usual gubbins…

Answer the questions on surface area of cubes and cuboids and reveal the punchline to a fish joke. These work well in class, online or as a homework and offer some reassurance as students find their answers in the table allowing the teacher to help those who really need it.

I am going to be teaching Year 7 some surface area of cuboids and cubes but only had one of these involving prisms which might be a step too far at this point. This was what I came up with. The answers are on the sheet (although there are more answers than questions to avoid default answers at the end) which gives students the confidence to keep going if they are getting questions correct allowing the teacher to help those who really need it.

Answer the questions regarding sale prices to reveal the joke; you know how these work by now…

Students must work out whether statement is true or false regarding the tree diagram. These sheets work well online in my experience as they can be done from the screen. This involves a tree diagram where the second probability is conditional upon the first.

This is a sheet which involves eight questions with answers given on the sheet (there are ten potential answers for the eight questions to avoid guessing). These have worked well for online schooling and allow students who are reasonably confident to get on as their answers appear on the sheet. In the meantime the teacher can help those who are less confident.

Eight questions with ten possible answers. These allow the students who understand the topic to move on with the confidence of seeing their answers on the sheet (screen for online lessons) whilst the teacher can help those who need it.