Yes/No Game with Numbers

A simple premise, and very adaptable. Plus it gives us a nice opportunity to get up and get moving!

Here's how it goes:

• Label one area (e.g. one side of the classroom) with "Yes" and another area with "No"
• Give each student a number.
• Ask yes/no questions about the numbers.
• Students have to go to the correct area, holding their number where you can see it to check.

For example, today I played this with my Peer Numeracy roll call (which was extra good because it was a small group and the year 10 mentors helped check and helped the students who struggled). First I did numbers in the hundreds, then in the thousands.

Some questions:

• Are you even?
• Are you more than 50?
• Are you more than 400?
• Look at your tens digit. Is your tens digit more than 3?
• Look at your hundreds digit. Is your hundreds digit odd?
• Add up your digits. This is your digit sum. Is your digit sum even?

And so on. At the end of each set of questions, I got them to line up in ascending order and collected the numbers and gave out the new numbers.

I've also played as revision with year 7 classes, looking at number properties and special numbers, using questions like:

• Are you odd?
• Are you prime?
• Are you a multiple of 3?
• Is 4 a factor of you?
• Are you palindromic?
• Are you a square number?
• Are you a triangular number?
• Are you in the Fibonacci sequence?
• If you add 3 to yourself, are you a multiple of 5?

Some other ideas:

• Use decimal numbers and ask questions about the digits in certain places, to reinforce place value
• Use fractions and ask questions about the numerator and denominator (to reinforce those terms)
• Use algebraic terms and ask about "are you a like term to ...?" or "is .... a factor of you?"
• Give students shapes and ask questions about their properties

This also makes me think about getting students into groups for group work. Some ideas:

• Give students algebraic terms and get them to form groups in their like terms
• Give students numbers and get them to form groups of multiples
• Give students shapes and get them to find the same type of shape

Numbers of the Ancient World

Last year my year 7 class began by exploring Numbers in Our World, including making fake papyrus and painting Egyptian numerals on them.

I loved it so much, we did it again this year. Maths in the art room is so much fun!

This time I let them choose which number system to paint numerals from.

I also encouraged them to paint a calculation rather than just a number, which some of them did.

One painted her birth date and time.

Ever wondered what it would look like if the Ancient Egyptians did integration? Now you know.

Someone get this kid some extension work!

Circle Geometry Puzzle

Just a little bit of extra fun in Circle Geometry for my Extension 1 students.




I'd like to try more of this sort of thing, but it was hard work! Maybe the students should make their own as a homework assignment.