Engaging activities

Activity / Equipment
Place items around the room and ask students to estimate the mass or capacity. Students must write down he number and name of the item as well as the estimated mass/capacity.
In a similar theme, place 3D shapes around the room with post-its below with numbered 1 – 10. Students to write down the number and the name of the shape. / Items placed around the room with their masses/capacities covered up and numbered (stick a number on one of the students for fun)
Show an equation on the board, such as 2(x + 1) = 3x - 2
Hand out whiteboards with one letter/number from an equation on it. Students stand in line each holding a board. The students to rearrange the equation. They can change what the operation on the whiteboard (from + to – for example). Alternatively, hand out a whiteboard to all students and they can carry out this activity in groups. / An equation to write on the board and a mini-whiteboard for each character in the equation.
Hand out blank A3 paper to each pair of students and write the following on:


Ask the students to write as many skills they can think of stemming from thecloud (e.g. adding, simplifying) with an example from each. Pass to another pair and ask them to add more skills or correct what’s there. Repeat. / 16 sheets of blank A3 paper.
Powerpoint with loads of square and cube roots on. Get the class to shout out the answers and get quicker and quicker. This is especially good for remembering the negative cube roots and cube and square root of 64. / Powerpoint with a cube or square root on each slide. Have 20 – 30 slides.
Hand out pairs of photos of famous people that have been enlarged to a variety of scaled on the photocopier. For example one student will get two photos of Brad Pitt, one was a small photo, the other was enlarged scale factor x2.
Ask students to explore the relationship between the two photos. This leads on to talk about scale factor and errors when measuring. / Pairs of photos of famous people, one photo in each pair was enlarged on the photocopier. Use a variety of enlargement scales.
Tie a ribbon/cord/rope at the top corner of you room and the other end to the diagonally opposite bottom corner and ask the students how they could calculate the length of it. This is best done at the start of a lesson on 3D Pythagoras. / A length of rope / string /crime scene tape.
Spider and Fly vector starter.
A board is laid out with a 5 x 5 labelled vector grid. The students work in pairs and given a counter each – one is the spider and one is the fly. The spider move 2 right, the fly moves 1 left, 2 up. Students much find a place on the outside of the grid, such that by moving alternately, the spider and land on the same vertex as the fly and eat it! This is great for getting the idea across about vector movement. / Grid cards – one per pair.
Two colours of counter, one of each colour for each pair.

Group/Team work

Activity / Equipment
Top Trumps averages.
Envelopes containing 4 – 6 Top Trumps cards with instructions. Students work in groups of 4 to find the mode, median, mean and range for specific skills written on the envelope. Students will then find the averages and range for the skill on each card, such as Pieces of eight or Cunning. / Three sets of top trumps arranged into envelopes. Instructions about which skills should be used should be written on the front. Some groups of cards have easier averages to work out than others.
E.g. Pirates of the Caribbean top trumps cards arranged into packs of 4 – 6 cards, a pack in each envelope. On the front of one envelope it reads “Find the Mode, median, mean and range for
(a) Cunning
(b) Pieces of Eight
Some packs are easier to use than others.