Although this app is not strictly maths orientated it does have a (small) maths element to it. Essentially the games have been developed to exercise 5 areas of your brain; visual, memory, speed, problem solving and focus.

You are not directly competing with anyone but yourself although the app compares your performance to others in your gender and age group. Fit Brains does make you quite competitive with yourself as you want to improve your scores and performance thus making your Fit Brain Index increase. There are 12 different games to play, enough to keep your interest.

As I said at the beginning it isn’t strictly maths based but the idea of this app is to improve your mental agility which in turn should help your mental arithmetic skills. Apparently according to research the brain starts to age at the relatively young age of 25 so anything we can do to slow that process is good.

You can do training sessions, each session has one game containing each element and takes just a few minutes or you can choose the games you want to play freely. There are three levels within each game and as you get a certain number of points the next level unlocks. If you play freestyle you can choose your level whereas within the training sessions the level is chosen for you based on your performance. I play both ways depending on mood.

The games are visually appealing and work very well on my iPad mini and equally as well on the the standard size iPad. You can also download a computer version but it isn’t linked to the app.

I like this app for two reason, firstly to keep my brain agile and develop areas where it may be a little slow and because it is also fun.

Available on: iOS

Free version (offers in-app purchases / paid upgrade): https://itunes.apple.com/app/fit-brains-trainer/id565200595?mt=8

Cancer charities are close to my heart and I have put Trekstock on my page as it is a charity that has been brought to my attention by a musician in my favourite band (Archive).  His name is Dave Pen and he is trekking up Mont Blanc to raise money for this particular organisation.  In order to prepare for this monumental task he has been running marathons and half marathons.  Below is their Mission Statement.

The Trekstock vision:

To help beat cancer through funding research of the highest standard and ensuring all young people have the right and relevant information to make better informed lifestyle choices.

Below is the link to Dave’s page giving more detail about his expedition.

http://trekstock.com/the-quest-for-mont-blanc-archive/ 

Whilst the fraction calculations in this app are probably more complicated than you would ever need in an exam situation, the arithmetic you need to use in order to solve the puzzles is all good practice. There are help sections on each of  type of calculation with detailed step by step instructions on how to perform them.

There is also a glossary of important terms used in fractions. Whilst you would expect there to be addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions (and there are) there are also some useful unexpected functions such as a number line where the student can order fractions with different denominators therefore really making the student think about the size of the fraction rather than just ordering numbers.

You can also use this app to explore equivalencies  and compare fractions.

I  like the blackboard function which enables the student to write calculations on the screen in different coloured chalk.  This  can be  positioned  at the bottom of the question screen thus enabling you to see the sum and write on the screen at the same time.

If you prefer you can use the whole screen to write on, either way it is a useful function.

You can choose to display the fractions either as a pie or as a fraction wall. If you are using this app as a teacher you can add multiple students and it records their scores and saves them if required. Each game consists of 10 questions, so not too long (in my opinion). It has a time function which is not necessarily a good thing as feeling you are competing against the clock may lead to mistakes.

This app is available for iPhone and iPads and personally I feel it works well on both.

Available on: iOS
Paid-for version: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mathboard-fractions/id680171301?mt=8

There’s nothing like planning a complicated journey on public transport with multiple stops to get your maths juices flowing.  Or in my case, frying my brain.

Spreadsheets all set up to plan a fairly complicate journey in Scandinavia, all looks fine so why does one spreadsheet say 12 nights and the other 13?  Well, there I was peering intently at the numbers trying to make sense of them.  Nope simply can’t see where we have gone wrong at all. So I try squinting even harder but then the numbers just start doing a little dance. I close one eye and concentrate very hard. Nope nothing. Then they numbers start doing the hokey cokey and I think to myself that they are just ganging up on me.  They cease to make any sense whatsoever.

Only one thing for it, resort to using fingers for counting and check each line separately. Eureka!  We had lost a night as one of the journeys starts after midnight, there was a our lost night, nestling in the witching hour. Oh the deep joy of time not being in the decimal system.

Tiggywinkles

I thought it might be a good idea to explain why I have put certain organisations on my things I like page.  The reason I chose to include Tiggywinkles is because over a period of 4 years I spent a fair amount of time there teaching  some of the staff there who were doing Animal Care qualifications.  It was a fun place to teach and I always made time to see the various patients at the hospital.

They had a turkey called Tommy who you would very often encounter in the hallways, there was a spineless hedgehog called Spud and a hairless squirrel called Smoothie.  As an animal lover I greatly  admire the work the charity do.  The staff are so dedicated to looking after the animals and ensuring they get better and receive the care they need to return to the wild.

See Spud the hedgehog

See Smoothie the squirrel

Anything is possible when you have stationery

Since my decision to go back to teaching I have been gathering stationery.  Stationery is big love of mine, all those beautiful notebooks and pens just waiting for you to pick them up and begin the creative process is such a delight to me. I love my computer and have had one for many years, even before they became commonplace in the home but nothing beats the writing of words on a blank page and written with a lovely pen.

The idea started to become reality as soon as I started buying folders, notebooks and pens.  You can begin to plan what you will do and how you will achieve it when you have these tools.  The idea becomes tangible and stationery breathes life into  abstract thoughts.  You put pen to paper and so it begins.

So here I begin…

I have been out of teaching for a while now, since my ideal job came to end with redundancy.  I have spent the last couple of years floating without aim, wondering what I should do.  It was a TV programme that gave me inspiration and motivation.  I don’t generally watch TV and it was by pure chance that I saw the last programme in a series called Educating Yorkshire.  I watched it through a haze of tears and was so moved by Musharaf’s struggle to pass his English GCSE and the endless support of his teachers, that I realised how much I missed teaching. It reawakened my desire to go back to something that I had always enjoyed.

Struggle has always been my motivation for being a teacher.  Enabling someone to overcome their demons with maths or their struggle to understand numbers and how they work  was always the driving force for me.  My learners would always thank me for helping them pass their exams but it was wasn’t me who passed the exam and put in the hard work it was them.  To see their sense of satisfaction at the end was always a joy and something I never tired of.

So here I am, hoping that this new venture of mine will help my new students achieve their goals, with a little bit of work it can be done.