I struggled to find some questions to test pupils long multiplication skills, therefore I created this differentiated resource for a year 7 class. The red questions are there to provide support to those pupils who are struggling by providing the answer and hence they just need to fill in the middle section. The amber is there to get pupils thinking about which numbers could be replaced by the letters. The green section asks pupils to identify the error and make the correction. For challenge I have asked the pupils to think about which makes a larger number, multiplying a two digit by a two digit or multiplying a three digit by a two digit, and is it always true? @Mentor4MathsUK

This resource doesn’t ask students to multiply or divide, instead it gives the students the answer and asks them to work out what is happening.

This resource offers examples, reasoning, problem solving and fluency. I hope you like it.

A resource designed for challenge with prime factor decomposition. Finding HCF and LCM with prime factors decomposition, or finding the original number given the prime factors. Feedback welcome.

This question links volume with quadratic and linear equations, and with unit conversion. The idea behind it is students look at the question which is quite detailed and wordy, and the series of powerpoint slides will help the students to identify the key parts of the question. Please read the notes of the powerpoint for some guidance to ask the students question. Thanks.

Today’s resource can be tricky it combines the skills of expanding out brackets and simplifying with area and perimeter. Each question on this resource could be used as a separate activity or the sheet could be used for homework. It really tests the understanding of expressions and area and perimeter with some reasoning style questions included. There is a lot of problem solving involved in this, my favourite being question 4 which took a while to put together as well as answer. This could easily be extended as you will see at the end of the resource to include fractions, percentages, averages and spread. You could even go further and ask students to substitute a value for x into the expressions and arrange the shapes via order of size (but if you do this please note this resource was designed for only expressions and so the shapes were not drawn to scale) I really hope you enjoy, please give me feedback (especially if you come across any mistakes). This will be available on TES until Monday 13th August.

Activities designed to test fluency for index laws

Students find mean and median the hardest to compute when calculating with numbers, this resource is designed to test them when calculating with expressions. Therefore collecting like terms, expanding double and triple brackets, simplifying fractions is a key skill needed for todays crossover problem. As with yesterday’s resource this is primarily concentrating on expressions where the unknown is positive, again challenge is there for unknown’s that are negative creating a good discussion with your student/s.

Thursday’s crossover problem looks at connecting, mean, median, mode and range with algebra. The expressions are linear to allow students to grasps using averages and spread together to find unknown expressions. There is room for challenge, asking students to think about what would happen if the unknown was negative, or from the answers can they identify which of these would be an even or odd integer and what conditions would they need to be. Part 2 includes polynomials and simplifying algebraic terms. Students are asked to fine the mean, mode, median and range of five cards. However the expressions on the cards are not simplified and involve expanding double and triple brackets.

A starter for higher sets, or a main activity for lower sets. Students are given numbers and they have to put them into the table.

Keeping in within the averages and spread theme this week I have created a Crossover problem with mean and FDP. This enables students to practise their skills of addition, multiplication, subtraction and division of fractions decimals and percentages as well as testing their knowledge of equivalence between FDP, mixed number fractions and mean. Plenty of fluency, reasoning and problem solving. Let me know what you think!

Rounding up the weeks crossover problems with this final one on Median and FDP topics. What is good about bringing Median and FDP together is that students need to be able to order their FDP, sometimes this will mean they have to get it so that the fractions all have equivalent denominators, or they may find it easier to change them all to decimals and then answer from there. Designed to be either a designated piece of classroom work, homework or assessment. Let me know what you think!

his week’s theme for crossover problems is algebra with number and averages and spread. The focus of these ensures that students can build a bridge between these sub topics which are often looked at separately. Today’s crossover problem focusses on algebra and number, specifically looking at identifying when a number is a square, cube, even, odd or multiple. This resource can be used as an extension, homework, group task, single task, or taken apart into smaller tasks. However, when you use it, it will build on foundations needed to fully understand proof questions at GCSE.

Today’s crossover problem concentrates on expressions with mode and range, students are given expressions of which they have to identify mode and range and of these expressions. Students have to really think about what each expression means, some use of substitution may be used so that they can see which expression is larger and are able to order the expressions. An assumption has been made when calculation the answers that the unknown is a positive unknown, challenge has been placed in the activity for students to think about what would be different if the unknown is now negative, a good discussion point to have with your students.

Today’s crossover resource focusses on mean with factors, multiples, negatives, squares, primes and cubes. There is an element of fluency reasoning and problem solving throughout the questions. Take a look, have a go yourself and let me know what you think. Feedback Welcome!

The next crossover resource incorporates median with factors, multiples, squares, negatives, primes and cubes. It involves plenty of practise with problem solving, fluency and reasoning. All these resources can be used as a classroom piece of work, homework, assessment, broken up to mini-tasks, starters or differentiated resource. I welcome any feedback.

This is the third in the crossover problems designed to promote crossover problems between topics in mathematics. This concentrates on mode and range with number topics such as factors, multiples, squares and primes. This can be used with crossover with median and number, and crossover with mean and number. I welcome any feedback!

Every Friday I do literacy in mathematics. This is this weeks theme.

Students are asked to calculate the answers and sum together. There is a check in point to check that they are on the right track. To make it more difficult you could adapt it by the checkpoint but getting the student to sum the total themselves

This is just a small differentiated resource as part of my planned lessons for year 7 BIDMAS

A nice little starter for a fractions lesson. You show 4 images on the board, three of them show the same fraction, one does not. The students have to work out what the fraction is, and then decide which fraction is the odd one out. They must state their reason. I am working on more images for this and will put them on here, and Mentor4Maths website when complete.