MathsClass

Whilst often used as a textbook example, I had never seen negative numbers used in a lift before.

When introducing the topic of ‘ratio’, I use the mixing of cordial as an illustration that most kids get.
The idea of using 1 part of cordial to 4 parts of water makes sense to them – and they get the idea of equivalence when you mix the cordial in a different sized container (I use the examples of using cups to fill a bottle for a picnic, and using buckets to mix a big batch for a party).

I showed WCYDWT: Spacing Evenly to some of my classes this week. A couple of reflections…

A real-life version of this problem presented itself today.

(Source: Elementary Math Mastery, Rhonda Farkota)

I really appreciate having my own classroom for many reasons, but one is the ability to place student work (the fun stuff) around the classroom.

Some chocolate discussion starters for looking at bar graphs: a series of chocolate bar graphs.

I’m about to get into Surface Area with Year 8. Of course, there will be chocolate. But, since I last looked at Surface Area with Year 9 I’ve been thinking about Heat Sinks.

This week, Year 9 were looking at finding the perimeter of shapes that include curves (parts of a circle).

What else could you do with capacity? As I was getting a glass of juice to have with my breakfast, I was thinking that I could use this image as a quick question at the start of a lesson.

With laptops rolling out shortly and projectors appearing in some classrooms, we should be thinking about collecting digital media for use as stimulus or investigation material. So, the other day when filling up my young daughter’s bottles, I took some pictures.

I used to think that I knew what 1 billion was, i.e. 1 000 000 000 000. Then a couple of years ago, I looked on Wikipedia and found there were two defintions: Long and short scales.

If you don’t have The Big Picture from boston.com in your RSS feeds, it’s time to add it. Alan Taylor regularly collects some fascinating photos together. This edition, At work.