I’m not sure what weekend family nights look like at your house, but at ours it fluctuates between movies or games. My eldest daughter follows my own passion for games, recently it was Mahjong and this week it was monopoly! Oh no, not monopoly I hear a plethora of parents cry! Oh yes, monopoly. The…
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…
It’s week 6 of the school Term in NSW and we continue to be remote learning. I thought I’d share some awesome tasks, games, sites, ideas, and apps that I’ve been using or I’ve seen being shared around recently on social media. Thought it might be nice to see some of these all in the…
This week’s blog is a follow up to my article from last year Top 10 maths ideas: When it all gets too hard that I wrote at a similar time, when we were in a similar situation – working, and learning from home. Our schools and teachers have done an amazing job in preparing our…
This week’s blog is inspired by research that James Russo, Toby Russo, and Leicha Bragg have recently conducted (and will present at the upcoming MERGA online conference) about factors that influence the mathematical games teachers’ choose. They propose a number of factor themes related to why teachers choose specific games – I will utilise these themes to share a…
Well it’s the start of a new year in Australian schools and this is a busy time for students and teachers. Apart from getting to know perhaps a new teacher or new classmates, students will also be getting ready for new learning. The first week or two at school are usually a time for teachers…
Last week during one of my webinars a teacher asked “what maths games do you recommend”? What a great question! My first response was anything with cards, dice or dominoes and I went straight to recommending Paul Swan’s work. His books have always been a staple in my mathematics classroom and his website is fantastic…
In these current changing times, learning online has rapidly become part of our students’ lives. One element of using technology is accessing games. In the physical classroom we utilise mathematical hands-on games to engage students, practice important number sense skills, and to provide opportunities to develop critical thinking skills that many games (within their strategic…
In these uncertain times as teachers, parents and carers prepare for learning from home, I thought it would be good to share some strategies to keep young students engaged – particularly in mathematics. Keep it short I remember somewhere along the way in my teacher education degree being told that to work out young children’s…