Category Archives: Shape and space

Radians

By A Maths Teacher | Published: 18/08/2013

A picture paints a thousand words Most people and pupils* are pretty comfortable with using degrees to measure angles. Whilst 360o might seem an arbitrary number to split a complete rotation into, it makes sense to most. But in A-Level maths (and beyond) the humble degree doesn’t always cut it, and students are introduced to […]

Posted in Shape and space | Tagged , , , | 2 Responses

Estimate the Percentage Game

By A Maths Teacher | Published: 12/07/2013

Estimate the percentage – a fun game, perfect for the interactive whiteboard. Suggested Rules Estimate the percentage of the circle that is coloured green. Write down your guess. Click the red “Answer” button to see the actual amount that is shaded in. Your score is the difference between your estimate and actual amount. The aim […]

Also posted in Games, Numeracy | 3 Responses

Nets

By A Maths Teacher | Published: 27/04/2013
Net for a dice

Nets Nets are the flat (2D) shapes that are then folded up to make a 3D shape. The next time you’ve finished with a cardboard box, unfold it and see how the 3D shape is made. Cubes and cuboids are fairly straightforward – look out for more complicated (interesting!) shapes. (Hint: this is a great […]

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Pizza!

By A Maths Teacher | Published: 19/03/2013

Here’s an interesting little fact. If you had a pizza, with a radius of ‘z’ and a thickness of ‘a’ its volume would be: Pizza or, Pi times z, times z, times a (remember – we “lazy mathematicians” often leave out times signs when using algebra: F = ma actually is F = m x […]

Also posted in Geometry | 3 Responses

(American) Pi Day

By A Maths Teacher | Published: 14/03/2013

Happy Pi Day! In the UK, we write the date in the Day/Month/Year format, but our American cousins write the Month then the Day so, whilst we would write today’s date as 14.3.13, in America it is written as 3.14.13 or Pi Day as Pi (to two decimal places) is 3.14. In two years time […]

Also posted in dates | Tagged | 1 Response