Missing Terms

A Maths Starter Of The Day

Find the terms missing from these sequences:

1,   4,   7,   10,  __   8,  __  __  80,  __
4,  __  16,  __  28   17,  __  __  __  129
8,  __  12,  __  __   -8,  __  __  73,  __
6,  __  __  15,  __   27,  __  __  -72,  __
1,  __  __  28,  __   0,  __  __  -159,  __
Looking for the missing terms

Starter of The Day Transum Mathematics Topics


Topics: Starter | Number | Sequences

  • Primary 7, Bargeddie Primary School, North Lanarkshire
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  • We were all really impressed by Thomas who managed to get them all right really quickly!
  • Transum,
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  • After the students have had time to work out many of the answer the following questions could be asked of the whole class:
    What is the next term of the first sequence and how did you find it?
    What is the first term of the first sequence? ... The common difference? ... The 10th term? The 100th term? The nth term?
    For the second sequence in the first column how did you work out the first missing number? Is there another way you could have done it?
    For the first sequence in the second column. How did you work out the first missing number? Is there another way you could have done it?
    What do all of the sequences have in common?
  • Mrs Devlin, Clydeview Academy
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  • We were very impressed with our genius' Luke and Jack. We got them all. Woohoo!
  • Jm,
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  • Find the missing terms in the following numbers sequences
    1.) 5,6,8,_15,
    2.) 18,20,24_,38,_
    3.) 25,28,34,_,_,70
    4.) 55,54,51,46,_,_,19
    5.) 82 81 78 _ ,66,_.
  • Michael, Bolton School
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  • This was helpful.
  • Louisa, .
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  • I did this with my daughter as she is no longer in school and we managed to get them all. this is a good activity for anyone.

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Answers

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Note to teacher: Doing this activity once with a class helps students develop strategies. It is only when they do this activity a second time that they will have the opportunity to practise those strategies. That is when the learning is consolidated. Click the button above to regenerate another version of this starter from random numbers.

Extension

What would the nth term of each of these sequences be?

 
Laptops In Lessons

Teacher, do your students have access to computers such as tablets, iPads or Laptops?  This page was really designed for projection on a whiteboard but if you really want the students to have access to it here is a concise URL for a version of this page without the comments:

Transum.org/go/?Start=April16

However it would be better to assign one of the student interactive activities below.

Laptops In Lessons

Here is the URL which will take them to a related student activity.

Transum.org/go/?to=missing

Student Activity

 

Curriculum Reference

See the National Curriculum page for links to related online activities and resources.

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