MathsClass

Monday (17/08/15) was a Pythagorean Day (17² = 8² + 15²).

Today I had the fun of 20 Year 5 students in my classroom. I used the Magic Vs problem from NRICH. NRICH have lots of good leading questions, solution discussions and videos. There was lots of great thinking and discussion.

I made a SMART Notebook file to aid the discussions, available on MathsFaculty.

Probability is one of those topics where it's best to "see it".

Don Steward shares his excellent worksheets on his blog, Median.

One of the challenges I had this week when students were constructing rectangles and squares using a ruler and set square (drafting triangle) was checking the accuracy of the measurements (sides and angles). I walked around with a ruler and set square checking their drawings.

For my HSC Mathematics General 1 class, we are currently completing the Focus Study FSPe1CEC Water usage and collection.

In this topic, students interpret information, make comparisons, and perform a range of calculations in relation to personal water usage.

This is part 2 of my electronic worksheets for Consumer Arithmetic. Part 2 focuses on Spending Money, in particular: profit and loss, discounts, purchasing, best buys and buying on terms (hire purchase). (Part 1 focused on earning money)

Each year I use the TV Show, The Biggest Loser, as an application of percentages – here is a worksheet for 2012 setting out the contestant data that your students can use to perform some calculations.

I’m completing this activity earlier than normal this year, so the data is from earlier in the competition.

A number plane drawing worksheet for making the Superman logo. Included in the file (see below) is a page with a suitable coordinate grid.

Looking around, there are lots of activities for collecting and analysing data using small boxes of Smarties. Here is my version.

Each year I use the TV Show, The Biggest Loser, as an application of percentages.

You might have seen this map featured around the place recently:

So I wondered, what if the largest countries had the biggest populations?

I like teaching surface area, I think it’s an interesting topic. Yet, I find kids struggle with the concept. Not understanding the basics of area and then getting over the prior knowledge of solids meaning volume are two aspects that cause some difficulty.

This is a great interactive for representing simple inequalities on the number line: Inequalities with GeoGebra.

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

For Australian teachers with access to objects from The Le@rning Federation, the resource Bridge Builder is a nice way to deal with geometric patterns and finding the algebraic rule.

I’ve been trying to increase my use of the laptops with Year 9.

This is a fairly simple activity that allows for something different in the teaching of Pythagoras’ Theorem.

Despite every Year 9 student having a laptop for a few weeks, the topics we’ve been covering haven’t lent themselves to full laptop lessons. To end the term, though, we’re reviewing graphs.

I think that each student using a netbook/laptop in your class presents some slightly different issues in Maths.

If you’re looking for more number plane drawings, but lean towards AFL, then check out Jeff Trevaskis’ Western Bulldogs Number Plane Logo from his blog, Webmaths. Nice one Jeff!

Last year, I posted the Melbourne Storm Number Plane Logo – and today, exactly one year later, purely by coincidence, I’ve made a Brisbane Broncos Number Place activity.

An excuse to use chocolate in a maths lesson…

The Biggest Loser, the Australian version, is again on television. This year, Year 9 are looking at Percentages at the same time.

Trying to motivate Year 10 after the School Certificate Exams are completed is tough.  I like to use geometric design activities.  Whilst they seem like “fun”, or at least non-taxing on the brain – they get the students following a procedure, using geometric instruments and can be lead to a good discussion about the Mathematics of design.

Understanding the concept of a fraction by shading in a part of a shape is a fairly standard introductory activity.  When I did a search on Flickr for fractions, I found this set of fraction shading diagrams^*.  What I liked about these diagrams is that you are required to represent two fractions on one diagram.

Building an Angle Wheel is a great way to consolidate an introduction to angles for Year 7.

When looking at measurement, year 7 measure “body units” and use them to measure things in the classroom, as an example of estimating.  Then, when we move onto perimeter, we come back to one body unit, the pace.