EXCELLENT TOOL FOR TEACHING FRACTIONS, DECIMALS, RATIOS & PERCENTAGES.

This Excel workbook is an excellent tool for using with your interactive whiteboard to explain the mathematical links between fractions, decimals ratios and percentages.

Here are some suggestions for how you might use it in the classroom.

How Many Shaded: Show the students the workbook with no red squares shaded and one or more of the fraction, ratio, decimal and percentage showing.  Ask students how many squares need to be shaded to make 25% for example.  Get one student to come to the board to add the squares to check.  Repeat for different grid sizes and values.

Equivalent Fractions:  Show the students the workbook with no red squares shaded and the fraction showing.  Ask students how many squares need to be shaded to make 1/2 for example.  Get one student to come to the board to add the squares, look at the fraction the click simplify to check.  Repeat for different grid sizes, then for different fractions.  Ask questions such as "Can we shade in 1/3 of the grid?  If not why not?"

Investigate:  In a computer lab, get the students to open up the workbook.  Ask them to show the fraction and ratio cells and to investigate the relationship between the fractions and ratios for various grid sizes and a different number of squares shaded.  Tell them that they can use the simplify button or calculator whenever they want.  Tell them that they will have to write, present or discuss their findings.  Ask the what the simplify button does, etc.  This activity could also be used to investigate the relationship between fraction and decimal, etc. 

Download it here.- Remember to Enable Macros to make it work correctly.

SMARTIE MATHS: MATHS YOU CAN EAT

Thanks to Jenna from Wisconsin for sending me this great lesson plan involving maths and smarties.  It has 20 maths problems that will challenge students of all ages involving number, shape, measurement and chance and data.

You can download the lesson plan here.  And best of all when you are done, you get to eat the smarties.

Enjoy.

THINKING BLOCKS - HELP KIDS MODEL THEIR MATH PROBLEMS

Thinking Blocksis a suite of learning tools designed to help students solve math word problems accurately and efficiently. Using brightly colored blocks, students model mathematical relationships and identify known and unknown quantities. The model provides students with a powerful image that organizes information and simplifies the problem solving process. By modeling increasingly complex word problems, students develop strong reasoning skills which will facilitate the transition from arithmetic to algebra.

When you first visit the website, you'll find that navigation is as simple as it can get. Just click on the type of math problem that you want to learn, and you'll go to that area of the website. For example, clicking on "Addition" in the menu will take you directly to the area where kids can work on modeling math word problems in order to come up with the solution. Access it here.

Interactive Games and Activities about Measurement

Here is another great collection of resources from Woodlands junior school about measurement.  They are definitely aimed at primary / elementary aged students covering all the components of measurement.

Click here to access

Unit of work on converting units of measurement

Next week my students are looking at the metric system and conversion of units.  I have put together a weekly planner of activities and teaching ideas about how to teach this.  I think students will find them both fun and educational.  Take a look below for the complete lesson plan on slideshare or you can download it here.

Conversion of metric units

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Using Visual.ly in your maths lessons

If haven't already seen it visual.ly is the webs best collection of info graphics and basically a statisticians dream. Visually takes any concept and breaks it down into the simplest key statistics and facts relating to thousands of topics.

As a maths teacher this offers a wealth of data to inform students and a great starting point to lead to larger mathematical questions.

For Instance the info graphic below is related to the explosion of Halloween Stores across the United States. Take a look at this with your own students and do some of your own research in these areas to see how your students compare to the national average. This will lead you to seek out further statistical information regarding your findings.

There are a multitude of options for using maths and writing in Visual.ly and it will really engage your students because it is current, topical and looks amazing. Access it here.

Free Set of Times Tables Charts for your Classroom

It really amazes me how poor kid are at times tables today which is disappointing because kids who know their times tables well are much better mathematicians than those who don't. Which is contrary to a range of trends in mathematical thinking going around at the moment.

So I have found a great set of times tables charts at Scribbled which also has loads of awesome art & craft ideas that can be printed to either A3 or A4 size depending on what you need. They look great and will really help your kids get a handle on the alphabet of maths. Access them here.

Galactic Theme Park: Awesome Week Long Maths Project

Galactic Theme Park

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The Galactic theme park is a brilliant maths project for students from years 3 - 9. It offers a large range of mathematical challenges and students will love the creativity associated with it.

Everything is included here. Teachers and Students will need to work through the downloadable booklet and Grid paper required to complete the task and I have also included a PowerPoint above as an overview of how the project works for you to introduce it to students on your IWB.

This is a great authentic assessment task for students and will keep them busy and engaged for at least 4 - 5 lessons. Enjoy.