Topics: Starter | Number

• Richard Walter, Gordano School Portishead
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• Hi there, my name is Richard Walter and I am a secondary school maths teacher at Gordano School in Portishead, near Bristol. I have used your starters consistently over the past two years since I began my career in teaching. I think that they serve as an excellent resource at the start of a lesson in settling and engaging my pupils in their mathematics. What is more, they really enjoy them!
  
  The starters I find most successful in their ability to engage pupils are the number orientated problems such as the magic/un-magic square, neighbours, the once where you have the numbers 1 to 8 and a seating arrangement and the pupil has to come up with a seating plan where no consecutive number can sit next to or diagonally opposite another, the probability starters involving coins of which I can't quite remember.... etc etc. Basically the starters that give pupils a chance to have a go at them by trial and error but also allow a high degree of differentiation to engage those more able pupils who can start to identify the mathematical principles behind those problems.
  
  Not so engaging for me are the ones which start, "Think of as many mathematical words as possible that begin with the letter 'A'." I avoid using these ones.....
  
  I will continue to use "starter of the day" and continue to push it's use in my maths department. Keep up the excellent work! And thank you!
  
  Richard Walter
• G Oliver, Parkside Community School
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• The instructions on 5th of February aren't clear enough for use. It looks good but I don't think there is enough information
• Mark Richer, Churchill School
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• I am Mark Richer, Teacher of Mathematics at Churchill School.
  This is always a popular activity with my students.
  For this amd similar activities, when we conclude I always like to ask those who were successful "Did you work this out through pure skill, or pure luck - perhaps we will never know?".
  I find it particularly useful as a lesson starter to refer back to as a plenary after we have explored binary numbers.
  The solution for 5 envelopes is 16, 8, 4, 2, 1. This shows that any decimal number can be generated from combining various powers of 2, which of course is what the Binary system is all about.
• Transum, Twitter
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• Using small plastic bags and washers instead of envelopes and coins to do the "Coins in Envelopes" Maths Lesson Starter: https://t.co/KTLT95K9Gb The see-through feature makes all the difference. #mathschat #mathchat #mathsCPDchat #eLearning #edchat #Binary pic.twitter.com/NpDCiQcv55

  — Transum (@Transum) February 20, 2018

• Transum,
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• For a related challenge see Aunt Sophie at the Post Office, a Starter inviting you to find the ways of making up various postage amounts using 3p and 8p stamps. The extension activity is a Frobenius problem asking what is the largest whole number amount that can't be made with 5p and 7p stamps.

How did you use this starter? Can you suggest how teachers could present or develop this resource? Do you have any comments? It is always useful to receive feedback and helps make this free resource even more useful for Maths teachers anywhere in the world.
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