Newsletter, June 2010

Welcome to the June 2010 Mathsticks newsletter.

The mathsticks mathematics resource site has continued to grow, and has recieved some fantastic feedback in recent weeks. Thank you.

If you haven't been back to the website for a while you may have missed a number of new features and new resources, such as:


For Early Years / Key Stage 1

  • An Odd (and Even) Little Race, a mathematical game for two people - focussed on recognising, and counting, odd and even numbers
  • Shape Cover-Up Game, teach/learn the properties of 2D shapes, and practice counting at the same time
  • Extending Ladders, a (literal) extension to our ever-popular Place Value Ladders, now you can challenge the children to place 10 numbers in the correct order
  • The Buttonalio Program is our most recent addition - this (downloadable) software can easily be tailored to help children of any age (or adults), practice any number of counting or ordering activites. You can easily create your own "Buttonalio Files", but we will be adding additional files to use with the program througout the coming  weeks.

 
For Key Stage 2

  • Multi-Race Mathematics Board Game, focussed on times table practice - particularly the 6x, 7x, 8x and 9x
  • Decimal Bingo Game, find two decimal numbers which add to 1, 1.5 or 2 - includes two different sets of base boards
  • Calculator Activity-1, help children to work together to use a claculator  and read number names accureately
  • Because the Buttonalio Program is so versatile anc can be used throughout all the Key Stages - we thought it worthwhile mention it again. This is our most recent addition: the (downloadable) software can easily be tailored to help children of any age (or adults), practice any number of counting or ordering activites. You can easily create your own "Buttonalio Files", but we will be adding additional files to use with the program througout the coming  weeks.


 New Features

Each posting now has a 'Vote' button attached to it. After a great deal of deliberation, we have decided to add this. We didn't want to clutter the postings, but felt we needed a more effective way for you to indicate an idea and/or resource that you really liked - now you can vote for it! This will help us all in the long run becasue we will have a much clearer idea of which items you like, and therefore, which ones you would (probably) like more of.

It will become more accurate over time - so please use the voting system, let me know which resources/ideas work for you.

The second new feature is the Mathsticks Points system. This has been around since early May - but if you missed it... it was implemented as a way of encouraging our members to contribute to the site by offering 'points' as rewards! You can read the full details here: mathsticks points.

 

Book Reviews...

I'm currently working on adding short reviews of meaningful mathematics books to the site. At the moment I am focussing on 'story books', rather than subject knowledge, text books or informational tomes. See the current Book Recommendations.

 

Statistics! (as of 14 June 2010)

 

Communication...

Finally, as before, please remember that you can share your ideas here. Maybe let us know how you use the mathstick resources, or share a new idea with all our members.

Members can use the 'Comment' box that appears at the end of each resource description, or send a general comment using the Contact mathsticks tab on the top navigation bar.

 

Regards,

John

--- Not a member here yet? You can register here.