On the third day of Christmas Maths Sandpit gave to me … French patisserie cake!
Download the third day here: On the third day of Christmas
168. ChrisMaths 3
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167. ChrisMaths 2
Welcome to the second day of chrismaths!
Today we give you Doves…
(Image credit: Talismancoins.com)
Download the second day here:
On the second day of christmas
166. Merry ChrisMaths 1
I’m not going tinsel crazy yet – I’m just giving you, the reader, a resource a bit early to allow for printing and planning. We have a big noticeboard in the Maths Dept and I thought that this year it would be nice to have a temporary Christmas display: Welcome to the ‘Twelve Days of Chrismaths’!
I will be uploading twelve vaguely christmas related, corny christmas posters, starting today. I’m going to put one up each weekday in school, from 2nd December onwards. You might want to make this into a competition and get students to submit solutions to all the puzzles. You might want to use them as a class activity in the last week of term. Whatever you choose to do, come back each day for the next puzzle.
162. TMNW – Learning wall 2
This post is a progress report on the learning wall from the post 160.
I gave Year 11s (post GCSE group) A4 templates and objectives from the Y7 scheme of work. Their job was to write a clear explanation and address common misconceptions. They were free to use any resource in the room or on the internet to help them.
Here are some examples of their work:
They would make a great wall display on their own. If you want to use this template you can download it here: Student template.
The next task is to put their explanations onto help cards. The idea is to have the explanation and a question on the front of each card and the misconceptions and worked solution on the back. I will also have the chance to correct any errors before they reach the wall.
So far, so good …
134. Revising around in Circles
Ah … beloved GCSE students. Why does revising feel like I’m just reteaching a topic for the Nth time?
I’ve been trying some new ideas out on my GCSE group. One of the more popular ones ideas, for an unpopular topic, were these Circle Theorems fact cards. Students were given four cards with a diagram and an open question, for example: What is special about angles ABD and ACD? In the gap, they had to answer the question. They soon realised that the answers they had written were the theorems that they’d learnt. Their solutions had popped into their heads, without being bogged down by number stress. They could then try number questions, referring back to these fact cards if they got stuck.
130. Banging your head against a y-axis
Confession time!
I like teaching co-ordinates.
I like teaching plotting graphs.
But …..
Getting pupils to draw axes drives me up the y-axis.
Right now I can sense people shaking their heads – why are you doing co-ordinate plotting if they can’t draw axes?
The problem is that they can draw axes, but for some pupils it takes about half an hour to get lines drawn with a ruler, axes marks equally spaced, lines (not gaps) numbered. For other pupils, their particular SEN means it’s a struggle using equipment. Should I be penalising pupils because they are slow to draw axes, when I know they’ll work brilliantly if I give them axes?
So I’ve put together an A4 sheet of axes. There are two identical sets: the x-axis goes from 0-10, the y-axis goes from 0-18. There is also space to write name and Question number so you can keep track of who has done what. I know there are many websites that will generate these for you on demand, but I’ve just used what was available to me at the time to make something that works for my pupils.
You can download it from TES resources here.
129. A pie without a stab wound
A pie? Without a stab wound? What craziness is this?
From a cook’s perspective this pie divider is a great way to cut pie and not stab yourself. Google ‘pie divider’ for other genius/bonkers ideas.
But … back to school:
Imagine you are teaching pie charts. You’ve discussed what they are about, how to calculate angles, you may even have used the earlier blog post on Human Pie Charts. The class settle down to apply all their knowledge, when the floodgates open:
- ‘What’s that thingy you draw circles with?’
- ‘My pencil doesn’t fit in my compasses?’
- ‘I haven’t got a compass.’ (Do you mean pair of compasses?)
- ‘I did have a compass (!), but Mr X took it off me in Y.’ (Why?) ‘ I was stabbing Z with it!’
- ‘My compasses keep going wiggly’
- ‘I’ve made a hole in my book’
- ‘I forgot to mark where I put the point bit’
- …..etc
By the time all this is sorted out, all their shiny new knowledge has shrivelled away.
A helping hand
To assist with this issue, I’ve put together an A4 sheet of 6 piechart templates that you could enlarge on a copier. They’ll get you through the first pie-chart drawing lesson and set you up for
Round 2:
‘You know that pointy thing you told us to bring to this lesson and I even wrote it in my homework planner well I had one in my new geometry set aren’t you impressed that I finally bought one but my mum said I had to lend it to my brother for his test and he’s only just given it back and he’s wrecked it and he said he’ll get me a new one but he doesn’t get paid until next Saturday and he’ll forget but that’s the reason …I haven’t got a compass(!) today.