Over to you
Hoard the cardboard cylinders used for sending posters to schools. They make ideal containers for metre rulers.
* Spare your voice
An unusual but effective way of gaining the class's attention is to play a few seconds of music from a CDor cassette player. You can vary the music, which makes the exercise instructive as well.
* Add and take-away?
Laminate take-away menus or bus timetables - they make great maths resources, which children can use to make up word problems and questions.
* Alphabet charts
Make your own alphabet charts using clipart or a computer program, such as PrintArtist. You can include digital photos of pupils on the appropriate letter sheets or involve pupils in the sheet containing their letter. Laminate each sheet and you will only need to renew those with photographs for each new class.
* Around the world
When cildren get fidgety during mental maths, try this activity. Seat them in a circle. Ask child A to stand behind child B, who remains sitting. Ask a maths question. If child A gets the answer first, heshe moves on to stand behind the next child. If child B gets the answer first, child A sits down in child B's place and child B stands behind the next child. Continue firing questions until you have got all around the "world". You can easily adapt this game by varying the level of difficulty of the questions.
* Borrowers beware
Keep a notebook in your classroom to record when a resource is lent to another class. When you need the item again, you will know where it is.
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