The Storeroom Blog

Fractions with Cuisenaire rods

29/2/2016

Post 29/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Fraction expressions using Cuisenaire rods

As per instruction, I am attempting to finish strong, and I had another really interesting lesson with Year 7 using the NRich Cuisenaire environment today, so I thought I'd go out in style with that.

Last Tuesday we did plenty of work with whole numbers and algebraic notation, and I was really keen to explore some fractions with them today; we completed a big unit of work on fractions before half term, but some of them didn't do so well when I assessed them, so I need to keep coming back to this with them.

A key issue that we've been trying to work around is the meaning of the numbers in a fraction; we've reinforced this loads with bar modelling, but the Cuisenaire stuff links in so nicely that I decided we'd take the opportunity to attempt some fractional expressions.

Five good things

28/2/2016

Post 28/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Counting your blessings

I discovered "One Good Thing" when I hit the wall during my #summerblogchallenge this year and I'm in the same position today, so I thought I'd revisit. I've tried and tried but writer's block has had me good and proper for the last few days. I have, however, had a proper good chill day today, so limiting myself to just one good thing seemed too restrictive.

Exploring decimal time

27/2/2016

Post 27/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: 100 minutes in an hour?

During revision on standard units with Year 9 this week, we dealt with the typical confusions between metric and Imperial - they're fairly happy with metres and centimetres, but a few are also convinced that inches and feet are too, possibly because they're still in such common usage.

Friday feels

26/2/2016

Post 26/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Real life catches up and I'm actually out of the house!

So the restaurant I'm at has red and green cards, but no amber...

Yeah, tonight's is a bit of a placeholder post, as I've been busy, followed by asleep (post-half term lurgy), followed by actually out of the house for a friend's birthday meal.

Sometimes switching off is the best thing to do! I'll make the last three posts particularly good to make up!

Five ideas for square numbers

25/2/2016

Post 25/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Lesson ideas for exploring square numbers

As we've got two squares in today's date, I thought I'd go for a square themed post. Also I've just realised that this year contains 25/04/16, and 25/09/16, both even better excuses for a lesson on square numbers.

These are all great investigations/rich problems with plenty of practice working with square numbers - a little more interesting than fifteen questions out of a textbook. If pupils have to learn facts, such as the squares to 15, I think it's better to embed them into something a little mathematically rich than just drill.

This evening, I have mostly been...

24/2/2016

Post 24/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: The joys of procrastination

Cuisenaire rods and introducing algebra

23/2/2016

Post 23/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Putting ideas into practise

So I had one of those lessons today that reminds me exactly how great this job can be. I snuck in an extra blog over half term about using Cuisenaire rods to introduce algebraic expressions with Year 7, and I guinea-pigged the lesson with them today - it worked so well, and I imagine would have been even better if we'd actually had sets of Cuisenaire rods rather than working on square paper.

We started by playing around with the Cuisenaire interactive from NRich - none of them had used the rods at primary, so I thought it was probably important that we got used to the basics. I started by building a couple of bonds to 10, then getting the pupils to explain what was there. They started by using numbers, referring to "the eight block" and "the two block", but quickly started describing them as "brown" and "red", and saying things like "brown plus red" quite naturally.

Grid lines - a HCF and LCM investigation

22/2/2016

Post 22/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: An interesting way to investigate HCF and LCM

For my remaining full week, I'm going to try and post one rich resource and discussion. I found a nice prompt yesterday in a pack of really old investigations, and thought I'd look into it in a little more detail today. I'd got this filed under HCF and LCM, and have no idea of the origin, but it looked pretty simple so I sat down with pen and paper to try and figure it out.

Half term self-assessment

21/2/2016

Post 21/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: What went well, even better if?

End of half term and back to school tomorrow - I'm keeping myself going with the thought that it's only a really short one until Easter!

What went well:

Lots of time to work on my website, upload plenty of new resources and also get our KS3/4 scheme redrafted and finalised.
Met plenty of estate agents (and employed one), painted the outside of the house and did more general de-cluttering - exciting times ahead as we're moving house in the next couple of months!
Had some chill time, watched a couple of great movies just on my own. Really enjoyed The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I'd meant to see for ages, but not got round to it.
Did all of my #teacher5adaysketches and kept up with the blogging challenge (only eight more posts to go!).

My school days

20/2/2016

Post 20/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: When I were young...

Pinched this idea from @stephenconnor7 ...

What were you like at school?

I grew up and went to school in Staffordshire, which had a three-tier system. In Primary and Middle schools, I worked really hard most of the time and, despite not enjoying school when I first started, loved most of my subjects by the end of Year 8. People used to copy answers for their maths work off me all the time! In Year 10, I had a "teenage blip" when I decided that all I wanted to do was Art, and didn't really put a lot of effort into many of my other subjects. Luckily, I still managed to get some decent GCSE results, and turned it around in sixth form.

#teacher5adaysketch - Use a tablet or computer

19/2/2016

Post 19/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Use a tablet or computer to create a sketch

Today's prompt got me thinking about use of technology and continuing advantages of pencil and paper methods, even with the leaps and bounds in computing. I like to think of myself as being fairly computer-literate, but I found the sketch today a real challenge - I did it on my tablet, using the Bamboo Paper app. It's supposed to be a self-portrait from my Twitter picture, but I'll hold my hands up now and say it's really not the best thing I've ever done. I think my limited skills are somewhat better when drawing on actual paper than trying to do the same thing virtually.

#teacher5adaysketch - Film or book

18/2/2016

Post 18/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Sketch from a film or a book

I apologise in advance for this - I've just done it in the only half-hour I have spare all day. All morning and most of the afternoon was spent in the garden, painting the outside of the house and both front and back doors, and husband and I are off to games night at a friend's in about 40 minutes.

#teacher5adaysketch - Choose a piece of art

17/2/2016

Post 17/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Choose a piece of art

Today's prompt was "choose a piece of art with one idea of you might use it in the classroom". As a maths teacher, I've predictably picked my favourite piece of artwork by M.C. Escher - when I was little, someone bought me a postcard book of his work, and I still have the postcards in my display folder.

A few years ago, I got a jigsaw puzzle of this monstrosity:

#teacher5adaysketch - My school shoes

16/2/2016

Post 16/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: My school shoes

So today's prompt is "sketch your favourite pair of school shoes". This was pretty easy, as I only have one pair. I can't stand wearing heels at school, so flats are my go-to. They are a little boring, but very comfortable - let's save the giraffe-esque sandals for the weekend, eh?

#teacher5adaysketch - My hobbies

15/2/2016

Post 15/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: My hobbies

As half term is an opportunity to relax, I thought I'd do something different this week - having seen the #teacher5adaysketch challenge on Twitter, I cracked out my sketchbook and pencils to draw "my hobby".

Love is in the air!

14/2/2016

Post 14/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Sentimentality and graph of a heart

When I was younger, I was ridiculously cynical about Valentine's Day - I'd wonder why people needed one special day to tell or show their significant other how much they love them, when surely that should be happening all the time. However, as I'm often working late into the evenings (I get in at 4pm but usually do 2-3 hours at home in the evening), sometimes I find my husband's come in at 5 and I've not even acknowledged him, because I'm so engrossed in school-work. It's very easy to neglect to remind the people who are important to you just how important they are - family and friends as well as significant others.

Circular thinking

13/2/2016

Post 13/29 in the Staffrm #29daysofwriting challenge: Naming the parts of a circle

It's another short(ish) post today because I'm trying to make the most of my first weekend of half term and also because I've done something weird to one of my fingers and typing/clicking is really painful today (fortunately, this also puts paid to any idea that I'll be marking books later).

Following my post yesterday about integers, I got the following Twitter comment:

Ooh Etymology and maths! and of course "tangent" means "touching" #NumbersCount

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