Miss Norledge's Storeroom
  • Home
  • Resources by Topic
    • Number and Proportion
    • Algebra
    • Shape
  • Blog
    • Summer Blog Challenge
    • Staffrm 29 Days of Writing (2016)
    • Maths with Zoombinis
  • My resources
    • Downloads >
      • Mix Match
      • Rally Coach
      • Pass the Problem
    • Request a password
  • Links
    • Teaching blogs and resources
    • Web tools and apps
    • Exams and assessment
  • Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • Resources by Topic
    • Number and Proportion
    • Algebra
    • Shape
  • Blog
    • Summer Blog Challenge
    • Staffrm 29 Days of Writing (2016)
    • Maths with Zoombinis
  • My resources
    • Downloads >
      • Mix Match
      • Rally Coach
      • Pass the Problem
    • Request a password
  • Links
    • Teaching blogs and resources
    • Web tools and apps
    • Exams and assessment
  • Privacy Policy

             

  

How does Bob Marley like his Maths...?

22/7/2015

 
Picture
...With jam in! Badumdum-tshh...

Not sure if that really works, but I enjoyed my first Maths Jam so much last night that I thought it would make a great topic for my SBPC post today.

If you don't know about Maths Jam (I didn't until Beth (@MissBLilley) invited me along at the last maths conference), it's a monthly get-together for "maths enthusiasts" in your local area, which understandably attracts a lot of maths teachers. It's also something I wish I'd found out about a lot sooner, as I've been back in Leeds for over four years now, and would have really enjoyed going along to these as I was settling back in and making new friends.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for a couple of problems from Solve my Maths.
Anyway, I trotted merrily off to the White Swan at 7pm and played "Spot the Maths Teachers". Luckily, Dave (@dmh10), one of the organisers, spotted me, otherwise I'd have been wandering round in circles for hours.

We kicked off with this great puzzle from the Senior Team Maths Challenge - it's formatted so that half the team have the across clues and half have the down, so encourages collaboration. All the other puzzles are available here, and I'm definitely going to be using these next year, along with the Junior versions. 

The competition should take 40 minutes - I reckon we took longer than this, but there was a lot of duplicated work going on. Something I really need to work on is confidence in my own answers - I noticed I was doing what some pupils do in my classroom. I've got a fixed perception of my ability in maths - I'm good, but I'm not amazing - and I can get quite insecure about whether my answers are correct when surrounded with people I perceive as being "better" at maths than me! 

Next up, we started working on some problems from Solve my Maths, all themed around circles as today is Pi approximation day, dontcha know? 

I started with this one, as I'd done it recently on a training day, but forgotten exactly how. After a bit of fiddling and use of similar triangles, I got an answer I was happy with - note I'm posting the tidy solutions only! You can click to make it bigger rather than squinting...
Picture
Picture
Other than an unnecessary use of Pythagoras to find the hypotenuse, which I then didn't use, I got my solution pretty quickly. Buoyed up by my success, I decided to tackle another one I'd seen on the same training day, but not done.

This is one of the most frustrating problems I've ever done - both Dave and I were working on this simultaneously for about an hour. I used 5 pieces of paper, Dave used 8, and I spent at least 40 minutes rewriting the same set of equations. Problems like these are like annoying itches though - every time I put my pen down and admitted defeat, I'd picked it back up within a few minutes and was redrawing the diagram for the millionth time.

Interestingly, we both arrived at a completely independent solution within minutes of each other. Mine wasn't terribly elegant, but it worked. Again, this is the tidy version... at one point, I ended up trying to solve 17875x - 286x² - 268082 = 0, and even then it didn't give me the correct answer.

Picture
Picture
To finish the evening off, we had a few games of Set. It's nearly impossible to explain without a physical demonstration, but once you get your head round it, it's great fun. I've got a copy on its way from Amazon, and I'm planning to inflict it on some friends tomorrow evening, and also give it a go in school next year.

I then spent an hour playing an app version, Trio, on my tablet rather than going to bed. I love the summer holidays!


Comments are closed.

    Categories

    All
    #29daysofwriting
    A Level
    Algebra
    Algebra Tiles
    Area
    Assessment
    Bar Model
    Bar Modelling
    Books
    Celebration Of Maths 2015
    Challenge
    Circles
    CPD
    Cuisenaire Rods
    Data
    Decimals
    Displays
    Enrichment
    Equations
    Events
    Feedback
    Formulae
    Four Operations
    Fractions
    Functional Maths
    Gcse 2015
    GCSE Past Papers
    GCSE Revision
    Graphs
    Group Work
    HCF And LCM
    History Of Maths
    Intervention
    Investigation
    Lesson
    Lesson Ideas
    Literacy
    Lotw
    Loving Maths
    Manipulatives
    Marking
    Mastery
    #mathsconf
    #mathsconf2015
    #mathsconf4
    Maths In Pictures
    Multiplication
    Musings
    Negative Numbers
    News
    Numeracy Across Curriculum
    Parenthood
    Percentages
    Pick Of Twitter
    Pie Charts
    Primes
    Probability
    Problem Solving
    Proportion Problems
    Puzzles
    Pythagoras
    Quadratics
    Quadratic Sequences
    Ratio Tables
    Real Life Graphs
    Reflection
    Resources
    Revision
    Rounding
    Schemes Of Work
    Simultaneous Equations
    Square Numbers
    Stationery
    #summerblogchallenge
    #teacher5adaysketch
    Teaching And Learning
    Technology
    Top Ten
    Trignometry
    Trigonometry
    Vectors
    Venn Diagrams
    Websites
    Weebly Tutorials
    Zoombinis


    Archives

    August 2020
    September 2018
    August 2018
    October 2017
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.