Resources, musings & lesson ideas for teaching, learning & enjoying maths.
Inspired by a question from the UKMT Intermediate challenge (2016); read the original blog post here. Clock image credit: https://openclipart.org/detail/217064/2-oclock Fermat image public domain, available https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36804
Fermat’s Christmas Theorem Read More »
Today my Year 10s did the Intermediate Maths Challenge. I thought I’d have a go too, but only got as far as Q3 before finding something I wanted to investigate further. The question concerned the sums of pairs of consecutive square numbers – 1² + 2², 2² + 3² … up to 5² + 6², …
I thought Christmas was over…? Read More »
I had a great conversation with my Year 10 set when doing geometric reasoning a couple of weeks ago – they’d done it all before, so we whizzed all the shape and angle properties in about twenty minutes, but I constructed one from the other, much as Euclid built up his ideas in the Elements. …
Why angles in a triangle aren’t always 180 Read More »
While I was reading stuff for yesterday’s post on Egyptian fractions, the name Sierpiński popped up a couple of times – and as his triangle is one of my favourite bits of maths, I thought I’d run with that thread for today’s post. Polish mathematician Wacław Sierpiński has three fractals named after him: the aforementioned triangle, …
Curves, carpets and sponges – a look at Sierpinski Read More »
(You’re going to have to let me off for using the word “math” in the blog title – “maths” just does not work as a verb). So this month I’m participating in Bloguary over at Staffrm, which as far as I can fathom involves blogging for 29 minutes a day for each of the 29 days …
Math like an Egyptian – five things I’ve learned about Egyptian fractions Read More »
This level was undoubtedly one of my favourites when I played the game as a child, and is responsible for many pizza-related sayings in my house. Unlike the previous two levels, this one is not focused at all on Zoombini characteristics. Instead, the player is tasked with creating the perfect pizza for some very picky …
Zoombini Maths – Have a pizza party! Read More »
The second puzzle on the Zoombinis’ journey is the Stone Cold Caves, and another based mostly on sorting and sets. There are four caves, guarded by two pairs of rock trolls. The two smaller trolls on the furthest left and right determine whether a particular Zoombini can travel up that path, while the two larger …
Zoombini Maths – Sorting using Carroll diagrams in the Stone Cold Caves Read More »
The very first impasse that the Zoombinis tackle is the Allergic Cliffs . Much like most puzzles in the game, the object is to get the Zoombinis across or through some physical feature in the landscape – in this case, a massive gulf between two cliffs, straddled by two rickety rope bridges. The “faces” on …
Zoombini Maths – Sneezing Cliffs and set theory Read More »
Half term’s been unusually busy for me – normally I earmark this week in October for catching up with school-work and sleep, but instead, my husband decided we needed a few days away. We popped off to Portugal from Saturday to Wednesday, giving me a complete break from my laptop, marking, Twitter and providing me …
Zoombini Maths and a new blog challenge Read More »
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 »