Well in NSW today, it is back to school for everyone! We wish all the students and teachers a great day and hope classes go smoothly, friendships are reformed, and teachers get the ‘virtual’ high five (or five hundred) they deserve!
Today’s blog is full of mathematical goodness. If you are stuck for a game or task to do today or feel like trying something new this week, here are some go-to things to try. Remember to also check out my other related blogs (Reflections on: difference by design conference and Mathematics in lockdown: Have you seen this?) where I shared some other mathematical resources. Wishing everyone a productive week back.
Games
- Michael Minas – Is still pretty much my #1 go-to for maths games. Michael has spent the whole of lockdown sharing games that will be a great addition to your classroom as we return to face-to-face teaching (you can also access his games here https://www.lovemaths.me/games)
- The Association of Teachers of Maths (ATM) have created a good collection of maths snacks videos of games and tasks. I have shared this before, but they have now included some differentiated videos that are accessible for those who have a little mathematical experience which opens up student access to the games
- Paul Swan also has some great resources, many of which he shares for free to download from his website, check out some of the free games here
- nrich is also a go-to site of mine for quality tasks, here are some games they have also created.
- Investigations3 also share some wonderful games like the one mentioned in this Tweet (pictured) – Capture 5
This week's game is Get Out Of My House 3.0, a brand new version of our all-time most popular game. We've modified it, so it's a better fit for middle to upper primary levels. Great way to practise multiplication facts in a fun and engaging way.
— Michael Minas (@mminas8) October 17, 2021
Enjoy!https://t.co/0in4hlLcZP
Scatter 12 chips & a marker on a 100 chart. Turn over 5 cards (+/- 1 2 3 10 20 30). Use any number of cards to capture a chip by landing on it. Use an equation to record your round. Replace the cards. The goal: #Capture5 chips! #GamesAsToolsForLearning #MeaningfulPractice https://t.co/Ye8bCztSaW
— Investigations3 (@Inv3_Math) October 23, 2021
Visualising mathematics tasks
- You’ve probably heard of chip-on-a-stick at festivals, what about Math-on-a-stick? It’s part of the State Fair of Minnesota, founded by Christopher Danielson, you can read about it here on a blog by talkingmathwithkids. This site also has some great visual tasks and challenges for students if you scroll down after the article, eg for number concepts
- Concepts such as fractions require visualisation to develop an understanding of the fractional parts and of the relationship those parts have with each other, and with the whole. Nat Banting‘s site fraction talks does an awesome job of visualising fractions. These tasks are wonderful to use in the classroom to launch lessons or extend understanding.
- Steve Wyborney‘s Esti-mysteries are focused on visualising and estimating based on what students can, and can’t see. Steve has recently uploaded some new mysteries, so check them out. Steve also has a set of 80 animated lessons about cube conversations, these are a wonderful way to promote visually rich math discourse.
- If you already use quick images and How many? as maths routines, this blog on the Stenhouse website is also helpful in extending the discussions to comparisons of examples and non examples.
- Matthew Oldridge also shared how he uses Lego in the classroom to build visualisation skills related to 3D object building (see attached Tweet), a lovely exploratory task for first week back.
Great morning of learning supporting educators in the use of Fraction Talks in a Hybrid Setting. With inspiration from @FractionTalks @NatBanting @MathforLove @MathigonOrg @davidporas @Simon_Gregg pic.twitter.com/vQY5XM0OmB
— Jordan Rappaport (@JRappaport27) October 15, 2021
P. 241-243 in Taking Shape is super sweet. Make LEGO structure, show for 5 seconds, kids build. Seriously fun in gr 1. Some kids really “see” spatial things more-think also shapes/geometry. pic.twitter.com/IzldUPIrlA
— Matthew Oldridge (@MatthewOldridge) October 22, 2021
Challenging tasks
- If you are not already using Robert Kiplansky’s openmiddle challenging problems, then get on it! They also now have google slide versions of most of their tasks and this group is growing.
- The NSW department of Education have created some support PL and materials for challenging tasks and questioning. You can download some challenging tasks examples from the related resources section of the page.
- James Russo also has a great collection of challenging tasks many of these can be used in conjunction or as a follow-up to his great selection of games.
- For some other challenging tasks, check out the Global Math Project, their global week of maths is finished but there are plenty of links there to things like James Tanton‘s exploding dots and the code breaker challenge.
