I've adopted two approaches for the negative numbers problem - thanks for all the helpful comments.

I've presented the number line in the form of an elevator going up and down and explained (truthfully)  that my old university was built on a slope,  and floor 0 was street level.

The lift had -ve numbers for floors below street level and +ve for ( Read more... )

 I have a math pupil who came to me because she'd slipped through the net at school.  She isn't stupid, but she locks down into virtual silence if she can't understand something and stops paying attention or making any real effort.

I've made quite good progress with her in several areas, but negative numbers are a major stumbling block.

Her basic ( Read more... )

GCSE results out today.

Just got a really happy call from the mother of one of my pupils who got a B in maths.

Lovely lad. Hadn't managed to follow algebra at school, but did just fine when we went back to basics and built it up in steps. He worked really hard and I'm so pleased for him.

I'm smiling all over my face!

(I was going to write a con report for concussion, but I'm still too sleepy from a bug Henry and I have been down with for the last couple of days ( Read more... )

Just been having fun with one of my pupils. She was having trouble with definitions of words like 'solute' so I just did a pack of cards with the terms on some and the definitions on others. Then we turned them all over and tried to pick up matching pairs ( Read more... )

I've just signed up for an Open University short course on Exploring the Oceans ( Read more... )