Resourceaholic: 5 Maths Gems #183 – Bright Minds Gather

Welcome to my 183^rd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Factor Trees
I love the recent MathsPad updates. They’ve added a factor trees tool which is available to non-subscribers. There are multiple methods for finding prime factors – factor trees are a popular choice. This tool is great for demonstrating the process – you can enter pairs of factors, then decide whether each is a prime number or not.

Another fantastic addition to MathsPad is a Describing Transformations Tool. This one is only for subscribers (most of my readers are probably subscribers, given how often I write about how good MathsPad is!). This tool can be used to demonstrate reflections, rotations, translations and enlargements (including fractional and negative).

The team at MathsPad has also continued to expand their large collection of excellent curriculum booklets. Further Trigonometry is the first booklet published from their Year 11 Higher curriculum.

2. Is It Plausible?
I like @AMercerMaths‘s “Is it plausible?” discussion activity – an extract is shown below. Students often don’t have a good sense of how big things are.

3. Area Backwards

@drpas1001 shared a resource ‘Area 51‘ where students work backwards in area questions. I’ve added this to my resource library.

4. Enlargement

5. Transum

It’s been a while since I’ve given Transum a shout out – new teachers might not know how much useful stuff is on there. I like the self-marking exercises – my daughter is in Year 8 and if she needs a bit more practice on a topic then I suggest she completes a Transum task, like this indices exercise.

I also use some of the tasks in lessons, for example when introducing identities to Year 11 recently, we completed this sorting activity on the board.

The huge collection of activities on this website continues to grow. If you’ve not visited before, it’s definitely worth exploring.

Upcoming Conferences

Nothing much happens in the winter months but there will be conferences for maths teachers in the Spring term. Complete Maths will hold a conference on a Saturday in March (date and location yet to be announced) and there will be a joint Conference of Mathematics Subject Associations, ‘Future Proofing the Curriculum’ on 14th – 16th April 2025.

Update

I’m very fortunate to get a two week October half term. I’ve had a lot of school work to catch up on over half term so I haven’t had time to do much on my blog, except a few updates to my resource libraries (I’ve added Dr Austin’s new A level resources).

When we return to school next week we have Maths House Week which is an annual event at my school (every department has to run a House Week). For this I have to deliver the same assembly five times (I’ve written two and I need to choose one to deliver. One assembly is on primes – following the recent discovery of a new prime number – and the other is about Ramanujan). We will also run a number of activities including a treasure hunt and a puzzle competition. I blogged about these activities last year in Gems 176.

I’m still seeking someone to join my team in January or February – this could be a temporary role (covering maternity leave) or permanent role – we’re really flexible (but ideally the candidate will have experience of teaching mechanics at A level). Please get in touch if you want to chat about this.

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