Christmas 2016 Update

Following the recent Christmas 2016 Christmas collection – an update – try a Desmos Christmas present!
Having reminded Year 8 about equations of lines and developed the topic this year, this Desmos Christmas present graph will make a good starter. They can identify the lines, hopefully quickly!

I also created a version where the lines are all black which means I can easily change the colour of just one of the items to clearly display each.

We can also discuss that bow! Whilst we don’t study equations of circles until Year 10 or 11, I will frequently “plant ideas” earlier so when students meet them later they have at least heard of them! Younger students can easily be asked for points that satisfy x²+y²=25 for example.

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Christmas Relay – Problem Solving Puzzles

On TES we have a complete set of relays from Chris Smith; my classes have enjoyed his Valebtine and Summer relays, I think we’ll use the Christmas relay to complete this term! You can find more excellent resources from Chris on TES and follow him on Twitter here.

As with all the these relays from Chris – all the answers are provided – brilliant!

GCSE Christmas Puzzles

Looking further at the TES Christmas 2016 Collection these GCSE Maths Christmas Puzzles from chuckieirish look good as do these Christmas Puzzles from ryansmailes. (Note I included one of Ryan’s resources, a Christmas Maths Activities Booklet as a favourite from earlier years.) The GCSE resource is a collection of four files and all the answers are supplied. I particularly like the Christmas Maths problems files – a very good collection to choose from.

GCSE Maths Christmas Puzzles – TES

Mark McCourt has a great collection of Christmas Activities on his Emaths site. These resources include a lovely variety of activities for your students to do some valuable Maths as well as getting in the Christmas mood!

See also Christmas 2016 Christmas collection.

Coding Christmas

From Google check their Made With Code initiative. Note that Google’s Blockly is being used for the code.

See also: More projects 

I agree with Simon Singh’s sentiments that Coding / Computing should be a separate and optional GCSE; I think using resources such as Scratch we can illustrate some concepts well and help students understand them; polygons and angles is a particularly good example of this and one I have written on before.

For some rather more advanced coding, there’s a rather nice Christmas tree generator here; select Auto Generate and sit back and admire the tree! Note that for any Scratch project you can ‘look inside’ and see the coding – a good way to learn more syntax.

Scratch project by vidarfw02

 

Christmas 2014

Please see all new & updated Christmas 2016

Christmas 2016

With the last lessons before Christmas approaching, it is time for the annual update of my Christmas Resources post, all links have been checked and updated, there are several additions too.

Christmas 2015

 

Please see all new & updated Christmas 2016

Oxford University Press

 

Christmas is coming – part 2!

Update – see fully revised and updated post: Christmas 2014

Last week’s Christmas post has proved popular – I thought I would continue the Christmas theme with some more Christmas activities!
Note Alex Pett’s comment on that post with a link to his very beautiful advent calendar complete with history and problems for each day (and turn the sound on!). It is an ActivInspire resource but Alex has also provided a pdf version.

Transum Software who provide the popular Maths Starter of the Day activities have some excellent Christmas Starters and activities and a Christmas Numbers activity.
(Note that there is a complete index of starters on this very useful site including the topic of the starter. Many of the Shine and Write activities would also make good lesson starters.)

I mentioned some TES resources last week, Craig Barton has in fact put a Christmas Collection together. The Christmas Countdown resource would make a great series of starters. (See this page for all the TES collections).

If you are creating any resources yourself you might want to install some Christmas fonts! (shown here: christmas lights, christmas tree and kingthings christmas)

Using the excellent MacTutor History of Mathematics archive we learn that Christmas Day 1642 was celebrated on Newton’s birthday in England.

Talking of dates, perhaps we should turn our attention to 2013, why not suggest your students make 2013 calendars from the nets provided on Teacher Resources on Line? I particularly like the fold and tuck variety – no glue involved! Here’s one I made earlier!