The following resource has been kindly shared on the TES Maths website. It is available to download for free by registering.
What is it?
This is a wonderful collection of interactive Excel spreadsheets designed to improve students’ basic numeracy skills. Many crucial areas of Number are covered here, including mental arithmetic, fractions, percentages and rounding. However, the piece de résistance has to be the Starters worksheet. There are over 150 times starters that can be projected at any point during the lesson, complete with answers. The ability to choose between different topics and have all the questions and answered saved is a brilliant feature. And the beauty of Excel, of course, is that the questions are randomly generated, so you will never run out!
How can it be used?
With all the recent talk about the “Mastery Curriculum” and the seemingly renewed appreciation that students need basic skills in place before they can become the problem solvers and independent learners we all want them to be, this resource will become a key component of my teaching this year. At least a couple of times a week my students will be presented with a selection from the Starters worksheet. And not necessarily at the start of the lesson. I am planning to project these up at numerous stages of the lesson, to get the students refocused and keep them on their toes!
Thank you for sharing!
Craig Barton
Download Practice makes Perfect