Andrew Jeffrey's April 2008 Newsletter
IMPORTANT:
(Do NOT hit ‘reply’ as I will never get to see your email)
Please send all emails to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk
1.
Welcome, feedback and unsubscribe problems solved!
2. Maths Website of the Month
3.
Fun with A4 – try this in class!
4.
Are you in Falmouth?
5.
Competition – Problem Solved!
6.
Half Day Training Course Update
7.
Einstein Says…
8.
The Williams Review
9.
Book Review
-----------------
1. Welcome!
-----------------
Dear Maths Friends,
Happy April! Firstly, thanks as ever for being a
subscriber. You can’t imagine how much pleasure I derive from writing this
newsletter and reading your replies; even the critical ones, which usually result
in improvements! Over 0.5% of primary teachers now subscribe to this
newsletter; I feel really excited about this, and yes, despite this, it will
remain as a free service for the foreseeable future. People always assume I am
going to build up a database and then start charging for it – you have my word
that this is not going to happen.
For the last two months, there has been a problem with
the ‘unsubscribe’ feature. Now that the
newsletter is sent out automatically, hitting ‘reply’ will not work – your
reply will not reach me. I am sorry, but I did not realise
this would happen, so if you have tried repeatedly to unsubscribe, or if you
have tried to contact me and I have ignored you, please accept my apologies. I
can always get emails sent to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk;
please add this address to your address book. This also explains (I hope) why
there have been so few replies to the competition!
I am excited that there are two new features this
month that will hopefully become regular part of the monthly newsletter. They
are ‘Einstein says’ and ‘Book Review’; see items 7 and 9.
-------------------------------------------
2. Maths Website of the Month.
-------------------------------------------
My personal recommendation this month is http://mathforum.org/k12/mathtips/,
an American site which has a vast range of content. The section I particularly
recommend though is the lightning calculation section; how to do calculations
faster than a friend can type them into a calculator. This is great fun, and
your more able pupils will enjoy impressing their
family and friends if they can square 17 faster than a calculator can! Not for
your lower ability pupils, perhaps, although they may well enjoy spotting the
patterns in some of the calculations.
This site is definitely going into my next book (50
More Great Maths Websites) and as subscribers to this
newsletter, you will hear about its publication before anyone else.
--------------------------------------------------
3. Fun with A4 – try this with your class!
--------------------------------------------------
Next time you are about to throw away some used A4, maybe
have a go at this instead. It will really help your
class with their perception of angle and shape, and requires zero preparation
on your part. Furthermore, the resources used for this activity are all readily
available for free! Interested? Read on…
Each person needs a piece of A4. Holding it in
‘portrait’ orientation, fold the paper in half from left to right. Crease and
unfold again. You now have a long vertical crease right up the centre.
Now you are going to fold the bottom right corner of
your paper up to touch the crease. To do so, imagine a right angled triangle,
whose base is the base of the A4 and whose longest side runs from bottom left
to about 40% of the way up the right hand side. Make
the fold, and you should now have a trapezium, sloping side at the bottom, long
vertical side on the left, short vertical side on the right, and whose
horizontal side is the top edge of the A4.
The first surprise is that the other two angles of the
triangle you folded are exactly 30 and 60 degrees! If they are in Year 6 or
above, put the students into pairs or small groups to think about why these
angles are as they are; this is often a very revealing activity.
But you can go further. You are going to make a second
fold which will bisect the largest angle in your trapezium. (The
120 degree angle at the bottom right hand corner.) To do this, simply
fold the top right corner down and to the left, so that the right hand edge
folds down onto the sloping bottom edge. You now have a pentagon. Here is
another teaching opportunity –many students will now tell you that this is NOT
a pentagon, because they only ever see regular ones! A good chance to remind
them what makes a pentagon a pentagon, and for a discussion about polygons and
regularity in general.
The next step is to make an equilateral triangle. This
is the easiest fold so far – why not ask the children if they themselves can
work out how to make it with just a single fold? The answer of course is to
fold the top left corner down and right so that the top edge folds exactly onto
the right hand edge, and Voila! (I’m not sure that saying ‘Voila’ would get you
any cross-curricular Brownie points, sadly.)
Believe it or not, you can now go even further, but
for this month just get familiar with this section. Next time we will develop
the idea even further.
---------------------------------------------------------
4. Are You in Falmouth? Advanced
Notice.
---------------------------------------------------------
I am soon going to be making a flying visit (literally)
to the West Country on 7th July to speak and lead workshops on the
‘Magic of Maths’ at the annual conference of the
Falmouth Primary Learning Network. If you teach in or around Falmouth, and are
able to get there for the day, it promises to be a fun and useful event, so if
you can, do persuade your head to let you come. Contact Chris Gould at chrisgould80@hotmail.com if you are
interested.
-------------------------------------
5. COMPETITION PROBLEMS!
-------------------------------------
I have decided to extend the entries for yet another
month, having been inundated by THREE entries! (Though I suspect that there
were far more who sent their entries via the ‘reply’ function which as
mentioned previously does not work.
So, don’t be shy – send me a great idea for a maths lesson idea, and you might be the winner! See
February’s newsletter for further details. (If you have only started
subscribing recently, you can access previous newsletters online at http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/newsletters.asp
)
----------------------------------------------------
6.
Half Day Training Course in Sutton
----------------------------------------------------
I still have a few more places available on my
half-day course to be held at Heath Books in Sutton. (If you have been replying but feel that you
have been ignored, please reapply using the email address at the top of this
newsletter.)
You can come for the morning and stay for lunch, or
come for lunch and stay for the afternoon. That way, over lunch you get to meet
the people on your course and the one before/after.
Here are the details of the day. It will be on
Thursday 5th June. Each half day will be in two sessions. Session
1 will be entitled “Tables Tricks – patterns to help the learning of
tables.” This is the lecture and PowerPoint presentation which accompanies
the free e-book available on the free gifts page of the website (www.andrewjeffrey.co.uk/freegifts.asp).
Session 2 will be called “1557 – how
to maximize pupil’s exam performance.” I will leave it up to Year 6
teachers to explain why the lecture is enigmatically entitled 1557…
The price will be just £55, and this will even include
both a fabulous lunch and a £5 voucher, which must
be spent on the day. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Heath Books, it
is the biggest educational bookshop in the country, and well worth a visit (go
there even if you don’t come on my course!)
As I mentioned last month, we can only accommodate 24
people (12 in the morning and 12 in the afternoon). First-come,
first-served. Bookings can only be done through me, not through
Heath Books, please, as they are busy people.
Timings:
AM Course: 0930-1200
Lunch: 1200-1300
PM course: 1300-1530
------------------------
7. Einstein Says…
-------------------------
It is no secret to those who know me that I am often
inspired by the words of the great men and women who have moved our thinking
forwards in some way. This is why I developed the “I Wish I’d Said That!” pack,
as I believe that a single really good motivational quote, together with a bit
of information about its originator, can really move some children on in their
understanding just as much as a well-delivered lesson.
You can get the whole pack in different formats from
my products page. It includes posters, teachers notes,
and some short biographies so that children can find out a little about the
originator. For now, though, I have decided to include a quote every month from
one of my heroes, Albert Einstein. He was a dyslexic, and I am sure to mention
this fact in secondary schools when I perform the ‘Trick That Fooled Einstein’,
a self-working but powerful magic maths trick. Here
is the first in what will hopefully be an interesting and stimulating series of
quotes from the great man:
“The
important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for
existing.”
Love it!
------------------------------------
8. The Williams Review…
------------------------------------
You may already be aware that there are two major
reviews into Primary education taking pace at the
moment; the Rose Review, which is mainly concerned with curriculum, and the
Williams Review, which is exclusively concerned with mathematics. Not wishing
to sound a name-dropper, I was able to talk personally with Sir Peter Williams
twice recently, and (along with many others) we had some very useful
discussions about what may or may not happen to try to raise the confidence of
primary teachers with regard to mathematics.
Next month I will outline what the main interim
proposals are, and share a few thoughts. Although the consultation period is
pretty much over, it is still well-worth visiting the site, which can be found
at http://www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/primary/mathematicsreview
There is still time for anyone to comment – I will
definitely say that Sir Peter Williams has done his homework, and is genuinely
seeking the opinions of practitioners; a refreshing change from some
consultations which are not particularly consultative!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
9. A Great Little Book from my Library
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I love books, but they are useless unless dipped into
from time to time. I have allowed myself a few days off this month, and have
been spending time with my family but also taking the opportunity to flick
through my library of magic and maths books. I
probably have about 200 or so, and I thought that a nice feature would be to
include a text that I have found particularly useful or stimulating as a
recommendation. I am not even sure whether any of them are out of print, but
for the first in the series, I have chosen a book that might be of use to
anyone who enjoys recreational mathematics. It is called ‘Mathematics, Magic
and Mystery, written by the American reclusive populariser
of mathematics, Martin Gardner. Check it out here:
http://store.doverpublications.com/0486203352.html
Full of clever stuff to show and enthuse your class. I
received a copy when I was 13, and it changed my life!
Until Next Time,
AJ x
Important Information:
N.B. You are receiving this newsletter free of
charge because you signed up for membership of Andrew’s exclusive newsletter
group on his website, or downloaded one of the free e-books.
You may unsubscribe at any time by sending a blank email to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk with the
title unsubscribe.
Once again, please do NOT reply to this email as Andrew will not see it
and therefore not be able to remove you from the database.