Tuesday, 5 August 2008

Looking at Shodor Interactivate




http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/ Interactivate is a set of free, online courseware for exploration in science and mathematics. It is comprised of activities, lessons, and discussions.

It covers at least KS2 and 3 in maths (maybe more) and has a huge number of resources that could be used on interactive whiteboards, or as individual exercises for all ages. It has a glossary of mathematical terms and a set of teaching tools such as clocks and tessellation tools. It is hard to believe that this is a free resource!
Just a few examples of exercises suitable for primary schools:

Pascal’s Triangle Fun

http://www.shodor.com/interactivate/activities/ColoringMultiples/
Colour numbers in Pascal's Triangle by rolling a number and then clicking on all entries that are multiples of the number rolled. This exercise gives children a chance to practice multiplication tables and investigate number patterns. Colouring Multiples in Pascal's Triangle could be used as an assessment activity.

http://www.shodor.com/interactivate/activities/ColoringRemainder/
Colour numbers in Pascal's Triangle by rolling a number and then clicking on all entries that have the same remainder when divided by the number rolled. This exercise allows children to practice division and remainders and investigating number patterns. Colouring Remainders in Pascal's Triangle could be used as an assessment activity.

Fraction Sorter

http://www.shodor.com/interactivate/activities/FractionSorter/
In this exercise children have to visualize fractions by colouring in the appropriate portions of either a circle or a square then order those fractions from least to greatest. It is a very good exercise to enable pupils to visualise fractions and get a good understanding of what they represent.

Estimator
http://www.shodor.com/interactivate/activities/Estimator/
In this exercise pupils can practice estimation skills by determining the number of objects, the length of a line, or the area of a shape. It is far more tricky than may first be imagined and would be a useful assessment exercise to see a pupil’s understanding of estimation and how skilled they are at using what they already know to make their predictions.

Equivalent Fraction Finder
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/EquivFractionFinder/

See also the Arithmetic four and Arithmetic quiz .

This is a set of resources to link to for our leaning platform!

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