TickTockMaths

Tag: fun

  • Some Board Game Reviews

    As I’ve talked about before, I run a nurture group. We often use games to try to make maths learning a bit more fun. Here’s some reviews.

    Orchard Toys Magic Cauldron
    Amazon link

    magiccou.jpg

    This game is quite clever. You pick up a sum and try to work it out. When you think you have the answer, you rub the heat sensitive panel at the back and the answer magically appears!

    You then get to add an ingredient to your cauldron.

    The components are very nicely produced, and it’s got lovely artwork. It’s also the game that the children were most excited about playing. However, it quickly got boring because of the limited amount of sums involved. The sums also seem to be odd. There’s mostly two single digit addition and subtraction in there, but also two or three multiplications and a few three single digit addition sums.

    In summary: Lovely, but limited shelf life. 3i+7/10

    Pop! Addition and Subtraction
    Amazon link

    pop.jpg

    Lots of one digit addition and subtraction sums in this box. A huge amount more than Magic Cauldron, which means they get less repetitive.

    Students take a sum, solve it, and get to keep it if it’s correct. However if they get a ‘POP’ card, they have to put all of their earned cards back in the box.

    Again, it’s produced really nicely, and the putting all your cards back is interesting from a nurture/learning to lose perspective. However it is possibly a bit too simple and thus its longevity is in question.

    In summary : Good for short sessions. I wish they did a multiplication one. $latex e^x$  out of 10.

    Your Number’s Up
    Amazon link

    Your Number’s Up! doesn’t really work as a game. It’s really ponderous and the components in my version are nasty. The cards in particular are horrible. I can’t quite explain how horrible they are. When your fingernail touches them it’s like nails on a blackboard.

    There’s also way too many ‘?’ cards, which allow students to go without having to do a sum.

    In summary: It’s too boring to make the maths practice invisible. $latex \frac{1}{x^2}$/10

  • Kahoot!

    If you’ve ever used either Quizdom or the ActivInspire voting paddles, you’ll realise that they’re quite good for assessment and for plenaries. Unfortunately they have a few draw backs. For one, most schools don’t have many sets (the voting paddles are expensive) and the equipment is often bulky. This is really inconvenient when you simply want a ten minute plenary at the end of lesson.

    Kahoot! aims to make things a little simpler. For a start, it’s free. That’s always a bonus as a teacher. Secondly, it’s got a nice, simple web interface that makes creating quizzes a breeze. I find the fact that Kahoot! looks lovely, with nice snappy animations also makes pupils more engaged than the comparatively boring/laggy Quizdom animations.

    All you need to do is pick your questions and answers and get students to go to http://www.kahoot.it on their mobiles. There they can you use their fancy smartphones (which most kids have) to answer questions and compete. The website also has a fantastic section of public Kahoot!s you can browse and search for. I like the sharing element. I also like the idea of getting students to create their own Kahoot! as a homework exercise.

    There are a few things I’m less keen on. I think quizzes often promote a frantic ‘me me’-ness that I think often ignores higher learning in favour of surface level facts. I often make the other answers common misconceptions, but I still find the class frenzied at the idea of completing the quiz and not particularly bothered about the maths.

    The other problem is with Kahoot! itself. It’s a lovely website, but lacks a few features (it NEEDS image embedding for answers, so I can show a picture of a circle as a possible answer) and the initial setup can be a bit of a trial. But I’ve enjoyed using it, and I recommend that you at least try it.

    It’s interesting how websites are slowly starting to fill a lot of educational need. With Desmos, Kahoot! and the new, revamped, FANTASTIC Class Dojo, I’m really excited to see what else people come up with in the next few years.

    PS: Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I am going to  try and get more stuff on here soon.

  • Only Connect

    only-connect

    I’ve been a fan of Only Connect for a while, especially it’s connecting wall.

    In the connecting wall round you get 16 clues and have to arrange them into four groups of four. You can play the BBC version here.

    I’ve wanted to create a maths version for a while, but I’ve never been quite clever enough to do this.

    Luckily someone has created a version were users can submit their own walls. It’s at puzzgrid.com. However I didn’t want to clog up the main website, and I wanted all of my grids in one easy to find place, so I emailed the creator of the site Theo to ask for help. This is what he said:

    My suggestion is that you submit grids under a name such as #Richard or #MrTock , or whatever.  Starting with hash is the key.  These won’t be displayed in the main list.
    If you want to display these to your students you can send links to them, or you could send them to http://www.puzzgrid.com/search.php?creator=MrTock
    This works fantastically! My creations will be here. Try and make your own, and share them in the comments below.

  • Chris Moyles' Quiz Night

    A while ago, Chris Moyles had a TV show called ‘Quiz Night’. Part of the program was a maths quiz, done by various pop acts (including, shudder, One Direction).

    A lot of these are available on YouTube, so I collected them all together to make a convenient playlist.

    Here it is

    I’ve used these a lot. They’re fun and engaging.