MathsClass

A blog about teaching and learning in a maths classroom.

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Post it Pythagoras

Saturday, 15 October 2016 ·

Inspried by this, Pythagoras in 2 minutes.

Animated perimeter and area

Saturday, 12 September 2015 ·

For a recent session with teachers about whole school numeracy, I created a couple of animations demonstrating:

Woo2be: Videos for Teachers

Wednesday, 01 April 2015 ·

Eddie Woo (YouTube: misterwootube), creator of over 1500 videos for students of Mathematics (with 7000+ subscribers and over 700 000 views!) has launched a second channel for teachers of Mathematics. Looks like he will be featuring videos from conferences, teaching and learning ideas, useful resources, book reviews and more.

Great idea! Looking forward to watching.

Scale Cars

Sunday, 23 November 2014 ·

Matchbox cars, specifically that brand, have a scale written underneath.

I've always wanted to do something with that.

End of Term 9 - world’s best paper airplane

Thursday, 20 November 2014 ·

I think I just found the activity for the last period on the last day of the year.

Video of myself in lessons

Sunday, 16 November 2014 ·

Looking at the area of special quadrilaterals, I wanted the class to make the quadrilaterals starting with paper rectangles.

This particularly class, however, struggle with step-by-step instructions. A document camera would be great, but I don't have one.

So I made a set of videos, these had the benefit of being large, on the big screen and something a little different.

Preparing to Engage, Enhance and Extend

Tuesday, 26 August 2014 ·

I am presenting twice in September about how I use technology to engage, enhance and extend in my teaching.

Simple Harmonic Motion with Sam

Sunday, 06 July 2014 ·

Back in 2012 when I first taught Extension 1 Mathematics, in particular Applications of Calculus to the Physical World - Simple Harmonic Motion (SHM), I captured this clip of my then 2 year old son:

Activity - Atlantis and Hubble in front of the Sun

Tuesday, 22 April 2014 ·

If we can determine the altitude of a plane in front of the moon, why not try the altitude of the Space Shuttle Atlantis in front of the Sun?

Activity- Airplane in front of the moon

Saturday, 19 April 2014 ·

Back in 2011, Nordin Zuber posted this found image on MathsLinks.

Number Sense Posters

Sunday, 17 March 2013 ·

For a few years, I’ve noticed that kids not only don’t know/struggle with their times tables, but also general ‘number sense’.

Kitchen Scale

Sunday, 27 January 2013 ·

I put up my first image on Dan Meyer’s 101 Questions yesterday, Kitchen Scale. Wander over there.

What’s the first question that comes to your mind?

It does the Math™

Thursday, 27 December 2012 ·

Back in 2010, putting a piece of wall in our kitchen to attach a child gate to, a problem arose about evenly spacing screws.

Locker Problem

Monday, 06 February 2012 ·

I recently used the “Locker Problem” in a Year 7 Maths Enrichment class (mixed ability). Here are some resources I used:

Lift Buttons

Wednesday, 04 January 2012 ·

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

Car Racing

Sunday, 11 September 2011 ·

Playing with the kids’ toys on the weekend, I came across this car and became interested by the relationship between pulling it back and how far it would travel.

Was it a linear relationship or something else?

Double Strength Cordial and Ratio

Monday, 17 January 2011 ·

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).

Follow-up to WCYDWT: Spacing Evenly

Saturday, 18 September 2010 ·

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

WCYDWT: Spacing Evenly

Sunday, 12 September 2010 ·

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

Question 20. Find the least number of cuts needed to cut a log into 5 equal pieces.

(Source: Elementary Math Mastery, Rhonda Farkota)

Letters and Numbers

Thursday, 09 September 2010 ·

Jeff of Webmaths points out a new Australian TV show, Letters and Numbers.

Term 3 2010 SDD

Monday, 19 July 2010 ·

Each year for the Term 3 SDD (Staff Development Day), the four schools (three 7-10 and one 11-12) in the collegiate I work in get together for a combined program.

Are you water wise?

Wednesday, 14 July 2010 ·

In recent years, Sydney Water has been encouraging households to save water. “With limited and highly variable rainfall in the catchments, the community can no longer rely on water from the dams.” source

Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover

Friday, 14 May 2010 ·

I think this is essential viewing for Mathematics teachers. I’ve been waiting for a meeting with my faculty to show them, which I got to do on Thursday.

Dan Meyer blogs at dy/dan, which you are already reading as a maths teacher… right?

My classroom

Monday, 25 January 2010 ·

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.

Using the web

Monday, 11 January 2010 ·

I just posted on my personal blog about how I use the web, looking at how the various technologies (RSS) and tools (Google Reader, Delicious, Twitter) fit together.

Chocolate Bar Graphs

Friday, 01 January 2010 ·

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

End of term activities 6

Saturday, 05 December 2009 ·

The end of term/year often brings lots of disruptions. So, as much as I like to keep teaching till the end, some days require something a little different. I like hands-on quasi-mathematical activities that allow every student to engage with and complete. And on Thursday, just before having one of those disrupted days, I found this…

Heat Sinks - Surface Area

Monday, 16 November 2009 ·

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.

Introducing Probability

Sunday, 15 November 2009 ·

This is an amusing video to introduce probability… some of my Year 8s found it hilarious.

Teaching equations

Tuesday, 15 September 2009 ·

Year 8 were recently assessed on solving equations and I was a little perplexed by the results.

Surface Area and Chocolate

Sunday, 16 August 2009 ·

An excuse to use chocolate in a maths lesson…

Perimeter of curved shapes

Saturday, 08 August 2009 ·

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

World’s Fastest Clapper

Saturday, 01 August 2009 ·

Here’s a quirky little activity that uses the DER laptops.

Google SketchUp

Thursday, 02 July 2009 ·

Google Sketchup is one of the applications bundled on the DER netbooks being rolled out into NSW Public High Schools in Term 3. But as it’s free, you can download it now for Windows XP/Vista & Mac OS X.

What’s in the fridge?

Monday, 15 June 2009 ·

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.

Digital Media - Capacity

Saturday, 13 June 2009 ·

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.

The Perfect Tree

Tuesday, 12 May 2009 ·

I was preparing for part of a presentation to the staff at my school tomorrow, highlighting the importance of numeracy being included in all subject areas.

Million, billion, trillion

Thursday, 12 March 2009 ·

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.

A story for Trigonometry

Monday, 02 March 2009 ·

A really easy way to create engagement when introducing a new topic is to explain some of it’s applications outside of the maths classroom. For Trigonometry, I use an explanation of how I used trigonometry in a previous career to find the height of trees.

The Big Picture

Saturday, 21 February 2009 ·

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.

The Story of 1

Thursday, 01 January 2009 ·

Here’s a video about the history of number, in particular the numbers 0 and 1.  Our Year 7 program begins the year looking at ancient number systems, so this video will fit in nicely.

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About

Simon Job — eleventh year of teaching maths in a public high school in Western Sydney, Australia.
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