Tes Maths: Top investigation ideas
Engaging investigation ideas to inspire creative thinking in your classroom
Since the abolition of maths coursework, there is no formal requirement to carry out investigations with your students. However, it is only through investigative work that students of all ages and abilities can start to appreciate the true beauty of the subject. They can hypothesise, be creative, challenge themselves, work with other students and potentially discover things that have never been discovered before.
At our school, we do an investigation with each year group every half term. They may last 20 minutes or five lessons. Here is a selection of the best investigations that the Tes Maths community has to offer.
I really hope you and your students find them useful, enjoyable and stimulating.
Craig Barton, Tes Maths adviser
Creativity in Maths
Maths Investigations
Maths Investigations
Based on the Science tasks produced in East Sussex, these investigation starter sheets give an introduction to a topic for investigation, with levelled guidance for progressing the investigation and to allow self- and peer-assessment. Targetted at Y7, these may be suitable for several year groups in KS2/3 Please note that the levelling guide is a first draft and may change. There are currently six investigations: one based on positive & negative numbers, one on sequences, one on area/perimeter, one on polyominoes, one on handling data, and the sixth on probability. Any suggestions warmly welcomed at tafkam.tes@googlemail.com
Maths Investigations : Chess Board, Happy Numbers
A range of mathematical investigathions for KS3 (11-14) Year olds including How many Squares on a Chess board, Happy Numbers, Largest and Smallest Answers, Deciimal Multiplications, Mystic Rose, Vedic Square, Bacteria, Staircases, Types of Number and Tetrahedron Tower
100 Maths Investigations Ideas - 90 page pdf!
Rich Maths Task 20 - Diagonals of Rectangles
Investigating Circle Theorems with Geogebra
Prison Cells: Number and logic maths investigation
Pentominoes. Lesson plan, investigation.
This unit is made up of a number of mini activities. After finding the 12 pentominoes pupils use the shapes in the following activities: Find the symmetry and rotational symmetry of the shapes Investigate which pentominoes will tessellate without being rotated, then which will tessellate when rotated Fit the shapes into varying sizes of rectangles The unit contains pentomino shapes to download and print out.
Mathemagic. Games. Investigation. KS3 Ages 11-14
NEW!! Excel Spreadsheets for the effect Total Disbelief.
A collection of mathematical magic tricks for teachers. Particularly suitable for KS3 but also popular with older children. Each trick gives an anecdotal account of the effect being used in the classroom, followed by the explanation and teaching points if used for further work. Appendix includes details of simple sleights such as coin vanishes etc.
Noughts and Crosses Investigation. Lesson plan.
As it says on the tin sadly due to size restrictions couldnt post video which go with lesson but youtube links provided.
