1. Welcome and feedback
2. Free Gift from HP Calculators!
3. Big News!
4. Website of the month
5. Top Tip – using photos!
6. Availability now very limited for Autumn
7. History is made: at last, a simple proof of
Fermat’s Last Theorem
1.
Welcome to the July
2010 Newsletter!
Dear
Friends- welcome to the July issue of the best-value newsletter for those who
teach primary or secondary mathematics. There are now nearly 4000 subscribers,
and you are in for a treat this month…I received some lovely feedback from last
month’s newsletter via email, including this one: ”Thanks – I used your idea for my final PGCE observation. It was graded
good with some outstanding elements!”
That’s so
lovely to hear, and I am grateful to those of you who bother to email your
positive (and even constructively negative) comments. I am always touched when
you bother, as I know how busy teachers are.
There are
two bits of really good news this month, and this may very well be the first
ever newsletter to contain a full and simple proof of Fermat’s Last
Theorem!!!!!
Please
note that there will be NO August newsletter, as I will be spending time with
my family (see item 3) and working on a few exciting ideas for launch next year.
2. Free Gift from HP Calculators!
Now get this - Hewlett Packard
have VERY generously agreed to sponsor a free
signed copy of my new book, Cool, Calm
and Calculating, exclusively for CURRENT newsletter subscribers (i.e. anyone
who subscribed to the newsletter BEFORE
TODAY, 7th July 2010.)
Please READ THIS CAREFULLY so we can send
your free book:
Just send an A5 stamped, self-addressed
envelope (70p stamp please), with your name and address, along with your email for verification purposes to Magic
Message, 61 Westfield Avenue North, Saltdean, Brighton, BN2 8HS, and we will post
you a hot-off-the-press-first-edition copy! They will be made available on the
website for sale at a later date – you have an exclusive!
Please note that anyone subscribing from
now on will NOT qualify for this
offer, though they are of course very welcome to subscribe to the newsletter
anyway! To ensure that only you get
this deal, before sending any books out we will check your details against the
email list held on our server, as at 6am this morning. The book is still being
printed, so you should receive it over the summer holidays - please be patient.
3. Even Bigger News!
This item will help us discover who
actually bothers to read this newsletter! Alison and I are delighted to
announce the safe arrival yesterday of our beautiful son Ben Jeffrey, on 6th
July. He weighed in at 6lb 10oz, and this is item number 3 because he is son
number 3. But for us he is first equal of course! Mum and babe both doing well
– Dad is exhausted but glowing.
Hopefully this will put paid to the
speculation I mischievously started on the TES Maths forum earlier this year, with
a thread question about probability and boys...Ben was the real reason I
started it, but it has certainly sparked some interesting debate!
4. Website of the month
Many of
you emailed to say that you enjoyed Alien Tiles last month, so here is
another, more light-hearted maths-based game to try. It involves finding ‘bonds
to one’ on a board full of fractions, which doesn’t sound much fun, but is
curiously addictive and will help children develop their understanding ,
especially when they realize that 2/3 and 2/6 makes one! Here is the full URL
in case the link does not work:
http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-fractone/index.html
5. Top Tip:
The
advent of digital photography and IWB technology makes it ridiculously easy to
use images in our maths lessons, but how often do we have the time to stop and
think how me might do this? I was reminded of this recently on an INSET day
organized by Karen Gladwin, in which we were given the chance to go outside and
take some photos. Here is a
page of work I produced – not hugely imaginative, but it should set you
thinking, and I am sure that if you give yourself a few minutes wandering
around school with a digi-camera next week you will find lots of ideas of your
own. You will be ‘utterly thrilled’
to know that since taking these pictures I have now found an eight! (To see
what I mean, click the
link.) Note that this is yet another FREEBY for you, as
subscribers to this newsletter. Next issue (September) I will share some more
ideas with you about using video for maths. If you already do this, or have an
idea for how you might, please let me know by 30th August and I will
happily include it.
Don’t forget, there are 100 more Top Tips to be found here.
6. Availability now very limited for Autumn Term
I
am getting a lot of requests for training and coaching, working alongside
teachers and TAs ‘live’ in their own classrooms and providing constructive
feedback and support. This, along with a range of other work, means that I am
now fully booked up for September, October and November, and cannot offer any
more school visits for teacher-support, INSET, coaching, workshops or Magic
Maths until 7th December. Sorry – availability is better for 2011 (apart from the
start of January), so if you are thinking of a visit then, do get in touch as
early as possible.
7. A Simple Proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem
Something
a bit silly to keep you entertained. Put your tongue firmly in your cheek when
you try this one out on your colleagues, but I can claim that it is sound, and
while it is not the first proof, it is probably only the second, and certainly
much more within the grasp of the average person. Having only 3 steps, it came
to me suddenly three weeks ago while I was doodling in a very small margin…anyway,
here goes:
1.
A prize was offered to anyone who could prove that Fermat’s Last
Theorem was true.
2.
Andrew Wiles was awarded the prize, being adjudged to have found
a proof.
3.
Therefore Fermat’s Last Theorem must be true. QED.
I
thank you...just pick your moment to try this one! I’m sure it will go down an
absolute storm at the local pub on Saturday night. Or not.
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That’s it
for this month – again, remember that there will be NO newsletter in August (enjoy
the break!). We are off for a couple of weeks in Menorca, where the training
for next year’s marathon will begin in earnest!
Thank you yet
again for being a subscriber, and remember, if you enjoy the newsletter, please
encourage others to sign up by entering their email address at http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/newsletter.asp.
You are receiving this newsletter because you have previously
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Many Thanks, Magic Message.