MathsClass

I wrote about my t-shirt box back in 2009. It’s a resource I still use in my classroom. When teaching surface area I have peel off sides for the box which can be placed on the board to show the net.

For a while, I’ve been developing a new look for this site and working out how to better connect my maths sites.

As I mentioned, the DER roll-out hit my classroom as we were in the midst of Algebra. Due to a tight program and exams shortly, I had to stick with a couple of topics which don’t really allow for “play” on the laptops as much as I would have liked.

A lot of the Algebra taught at the Stage 4 level is technique, and so matching activities work particularly well to practise and review skills.

Here’s a review of some of the ways I’ve found to make matching activities for use on the laptops.

For NSW DET teachers, the Curriculum Support web-site has been updated with resources for the DER, i.e. the laptops being rolled out to Year 9 students.

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.

For a while I’ve been collecting and saving to a web-site maths objects to use with my classes. By objects I mean single activities, rather than a web-site of maths activities. I’ve been trying to take some of the many things I find and save to delicious and put a purpose to them – deciding that it’s something I could use with one of my classes.

Are you drawing mathematical diagrams in Microsoft Word? You might even be achieving success doing this; once you’ve worked out how to wrangle Microsoft apps to do what you want, they can be powerful. But, for drawing mathematical diagrams there are better options.

FX Draw by Efofex is the application for drawing static diagrams for inclusion in worksheets, assessment tasks etc. The one down-side of this software is that there is no Mac version. (The rest of the Efofex MathPack is worth the money as well)

Keep an eye out when shopping, a great maths teaching aid could be staring you in the face.

For many students, working with directed numbers (positive & negative numbers) requires the visual aid of using a number line.

Two very handy fonts that will help make worksheets and other computer created resources look great.

I’ve found that teaching is one of those jobs where you end up making “to-do” lists.  Years ago, I was determined to do away with paper-based to-do lists chasing me around.  I started using Backpack described as an “information organiser” — Gather your ideas, to-dos, notes, photos & files online.

Here’s a nice page of resources for Mathematics teachers, published via the EAA (Educational Assessment Australia, UNSW).

CombiNumerals is a really handy font for Mac and Windows.