59 starters (so far)

A month ago, whilst doing my regular resource reviews on the TES, I came across a resource that was that good I felt the need to blog about it...it's been a while since I had that thought, but now (having found a few minutes between planning lessons for going back to school tomorrow) I'm ready to do so.

The resource is from Richard Tock (@TickTockMaths) (tes username: richardtock) and is quite simply a jam packed ppt with loads of starters for your Mathematics lessons.

You can download the resource from the TES here --> http://goo.gl/aoFVYR

The ppt includes random number/letter generators, you can randomly choose a starter task, you can assign your own favourite starter tasks on the menu screen by dragging the relevant numbered starter into the 'drag favourites here' section and much much more.

Here's the main menu...

 
As you can see the starter tasks are all differentiated by the colour coding that has been assigned to each task (key in top right of screen). By clicking on the 'pick one randomly' you can get a random starter task (make sure you enable macros when the ppt opens).






Some of my favourite starter tasks from the '59 starters' resource:

Starter #1 - what is special about this grid? I won't spoil this by revealing the answer, check it out yourself!
It'd be interesting to see what students would come up with here, and how they would go about trying to find the 'specialness' of the grid!

Starter #29 - bananas. Very good for literacy links. It is also very generic which allows it to be used as the starter in almost any lesson/subject. This could be adapted for all subjects, and even keep 'a mathematical word' to get a bit of numeracy in other subjects.

Starter #14 - What is the question? I like these tasks, especially as you can create any question to which the answer is on the screen, for almost any topic too. Click the number in the centre of the screen to randomly generate another!

Starter #33 - 4 pics 1 word. I created some of these last year, check them out by viewing my blog post at --> http://goo.gl/wx0uBR & download them from the TES by clicking --> http://goo.gl/vWkZCP.

Starter #59 - What is the best number? Why? This links to the YouTube video clip of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory explaining what the actual best number is. Cue debate from your students!





I also like all the Dara O'Briain's School of Hard Sums questions as I have seen, and shown these episodes in class on a few occasions. Some of the questions are quite tricky, but fear not...Richard Tock has included all the answers!

So, download this resource and it will essentially cover your starters for your lessons if you are struggling to find inspiration, or anything to specifically link in to your main lesson's topic/theme. The tasks I have tried out with students so far have gone down really well and it allows you to get lessons off to a quick start by having something to think about on the board as students arrive, you collect h/w in etc etc.

Thanks to Richard Tock for uploading this resource to the TES and making it available to everyone!