Year 9 and I have been working on algebraic expressions this week, and the lesson I taught yesterday was successful enough to deserve a “Lesson of the Week” post. We did the Standards Unit card sort earlier in the week, which was far more successful than usual, possibly because I attempted to structure the activity far more …
LOTW – Expressions using algebra tiles Read More »
I decided that a resource post was long overdue for the #summerblogchallenge, so I thought I’d post one of my favourite lessons. I put this together after discovering the fantastic Gapminder website a couple of years ago, and it’s designed to provide a nice real-life link for exponential growth.This lesson looks at two different scenarios. It starts with …
Exponential growth and the Chessboard Problem Read More »
Tonight’s post is another quick one about using ratio tables, this time for solving proportional reasoning problems. I’ve previously blogged about using them for percentage calculations and converting fractions to percentages, so thought that a post on general proportional reasoning was long overdue! Note: The ideas detailed in this post took a good few lessons to work through, and …
Exploring proportional reasoning Read More »
I chose this week’s LOTW because it worked really well as a complete lesson with minimal planning and preparation. I’m a big believer in varying what pupils do in lessons, and I love card sorts, discussion work and all that jazz, but sometimes (particularly on a windy Monday afternoon), that also needs to include more …
LOTW 17/05/15 – Introducing compound interest Read More »
In the spirit of encouraging personal positive thinking, I’ve decided to start a new Sunday blog series on the best lesson I’ve taught the previous week. This week my pick actually covers two lessons of work, and was delivered to my Year 9s on Thursday and Friday. To provide a bit of context, we’re trialling …
LOTW 10/05/15 Comparing and ordering fractions and decimals Read More »
I usually start work on factorising algebraic expressions with a critical look at what factorising actually is and a few reminders of prior learning about factors. I pop up this diagram when pupils enter the classroom, and get them to think about what it is showing. We then have a discussion and collect ideas. The slide represents …
Factorising linear expressions using algebra tiles Read More »
As Pi Day rolls round again, I’ve pinched one of my colleague’s “Pi Kits” and have now done this lesson with Year 7, 8 and 9 this week. It’s my favourite way of teaching circumference and area of a circle, both the first time pupils encounter it and as a reminder before teaching any new …
This is part of a series of blogs on my favourite way to teach adding and subtracting fractions in a way that sticks and really develops understanding of the process. Lesson 2 – The importance of equal-sized bars At the start of the next lesson, present pupils with two more sets of data, this time …
Introducing fraction arithmetic (2) Read More »
The lesson(s) detailed below have been absolutely groundbreaking for me in terms of teaching adding and subtracting fractions in a way that makes the topic stick and that pupils really understand. The ideas behind it were introduced to me as part of the NCETM’s Multiplicative Reasoning course (previously mentioned in my blog about bar modelling). Unfortunately, …
Introducing fraction arithmetic (1) Read More »