My Classroom

Each year I try to refresh the displays in my classroom. I don’t have a huge amount of wall space and there are a few displays I like to keep up all the time. These have key facts and information that I refer to often including a number line, square numbers, prime numbers, question stems etc. Last year, I used the whole of the back wall as an area for storing revision worksheets for my classes. These were there for any pupil looking for extra practice on a topic and proved useful throughout the year. Other than topping up the folders, this will stay the same this year.

So what will be new in my classroom this year? I have one thing I want to add. I saw this on Twitter last week and instantly knew I wanted this in my room.

https://twitter.com/AlexB19899/status/1287690176995762178

The idea shared by @AlexB19899 was to have ” 5 minute frayer time where pupils try it in pairs and using dictionaries to fill theirs in. Then a quick feedback where we fill the class one in together while they add to their own. Love hearing their examples/non examples.”

I can see me using this in a couple of different ways with my classes. The first being as a whole class teaching tool where I am introducing a new word/concept and I fill in the Frayer Model and then leave it up during the next few lessons as a reminder to the class. The second would be as a revision tool – I could ask the class to complete a Frayer Model for a given word/concept that they had previously met and then share the results on the class Frayer Model.

I am hoping that using this regularly with pupils will help improve their mathematical vocabulary as this is something they often struggle with.

August is here already

The last few months have been very challenging for everyone in many different ways. For me, it was adapting to working from home that was a big challenge as everything was different. Meetings online with awkward pauses and tech issues, estimating grades for exams pupils didn’t get to sit, worrying how this may impact their future, planning work for pupils not knowing who, if any, were actually completing the work, worrying about progress or lack of progress and trying to keep positive. It was tough but I actually think the next term is probably going to be tougher. We are returning to school full time from next Monday. What will this look like? At the moment, I don’t have a clue. All I know is that I have to keep 2m from all pupils unless I choose to wear a mask. This is going to alter the way my lessons are organised. I normally start to plan lessons for the first week back in the last week of the holidays but I don’t know what to plan for. It’s very confusing and unsettling. I like to be in control, know what’s happening and be completely organised and I feel very anxious not knowing what school will be like.

I don’t want this post to be all doom and gloom so I thought I would share a couple of resources that I used while working from home. My Higher class were working on logarithmic functions and I found this resource from Mathematics Vision Project. I had never used this before and particularly liked the number line questions so I put them together into a worksheet. Here’s the first two questions.

I loved the concept of placing the log expressions on the number line. Previously, I have found the pupils have trouble accepting the logs are just numbers and not some strange abstract concept. This seemed to be helpful. My worksheet can be found here but it is worth looking through the whole resource from Mathematics Vision Project shared above as there are other tasks to use.

The other resource I wanted to share was one I created myself. Still on the topic of logarithms, this task was further practice of evaluating logs but using the laws of logarithms. In the task, there are twelve expressions to be matched to fourteen answers. For the two unmatched answers, pupils have to write their own expressions.

I hope that my pupils enjoyed completing this at home compared to a more traditional worksheet. You can find a copy of the worksheet here.

Even though I am anxious about returning to school, one thing I am excited for is working with my pupils again. Setting work online and providing support is not the same as interacting in person, hearing discussions, silly chat and much more.