This is when I devised a way of creating Easter Baskets for everyone, based on ….wait for it, ratio. Erin has a hamster, a favourite teddy, a grandmother (my Mum) and a Daddy. Because of the difference in physical size of the recipients, Erin decided that everyone needed different sized Easter Baskets as well. This lead to a discussion of how we could ensure everything remained in proportion and looked the same – but reflected the different ‘user’ needs. So, we got different sizes of paper. My husband for example warranted an A3 sheet, my Mum an A4, the Teddy half an A4 (A5) and the hamster an A6 (half an A5). We then created a grid on each page by drawing horizontal lines on a landscape layout. These lines had to be strictly measured so as to reflect the poportion. The A3 piece of paper had spacing of 4 cm, the A4 2cm, A5, 1 cm, A6 .5cm. We measured this out with a ruler and then started colouring each strip a different colour, discovering that crayons were easier – and that little applique flowers were great fun. By Easter Saturday, all had been done and that left us to cut the strips out carefully, keeping the strips in their correct group sizes. The strips were woven together with the horizontal strips being kept in their place and then the other set of strips, weaving in between vertically (making sure that the coloured side is face down). The edges are then folded over and glued or sellotaped down around an edging strip. The baskets are then folded into a square shape and the final strip is affixed as a handle.

The result – a happy little girl (who was able to share her Easter Egg Hunt Booty), a delighted gradmother and Daddy – and a Mum who felt that fun had been had and great lessons learned. We are talking about using the weaving techniques to create other things now. With another few days of holidays left, does anyone have any suggestions?

For those of you who don’t know, the week commencing the 5th of March was National Pie week. I thought it would be a great idea to take a closer look at PIE in Maths, as well as some fun maths based activities that parents can do with their children.

For all you pie lovers out there… Whizzers, did you know that the very first pies are said to have originated around 9500BC, back then they were in the form of galettes? This is a fancy French term meaning a round crusty cake or tart. These galettes then evolved into a sweet pastry, this can be verified by visiting the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, specifically on the tomb walls of the Pharaoh Rameses II (who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BC).

In the 16th century placing live birds within the pies, for them to then fly away once the pie was cut open was a great delight, seeing the birds fly out would be a brilliant performance. The well -known English nursery rhyme (the origin is said to be dated around the 18th century) “Sing a song of Sixpence” demonstrates this; “When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing; wasn’t that a dainty dish, to set before the king?”

That was a bit of background for you, now let’s look at where the maths comes in.

Pi is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter. If the diameter of a circle is 1, then it’s circumference is 3.142. Pi is approximately equal to 3.14159. This means that if you know the circumference (distance around) a circle, you can find the length of the diameter (a line that runs through the centre of the circle). Circumference / Pi = diameter. Unfortunately there is no Steak or Mushroom in this equation.

We have Pie in Maths in another way. I’m sure lots of you will be familiar with a Pie Chart. A pie graph (or pie chart) is a specialized graph used in statistics. The independent variable is plotted around a circle in either a clockwise direction or a counter clockwise direction. The illustration below is a pie graph depicting the results of a final exam given to a hypothetical class of students.

Each year group is shown by a “slice.” The total of the percentages is equal to 100 (this is important; if it were not, the accuracy of the graph would not add up).

And finally… I will leave you with a recipe for a traditional Chicken Pie. Making a pie with your children is a great way to engage with them, and bring a bit of maths in too. Why not get them to carry out tasks involving numbers, e.g converting kg’s to g’s. They could even measure out ingredients, and you could weigh the pie at the end. The team at Maths-Whizz would love it if you sent in pictures of the pies you make, either post them on our blog on or send them to our Facebook page . The Winner of the Pie making Contents will win 500 extra credits .

So everyone…..get your fingers in the pie.

Encourage your child to complete the assessment in one or two sittings, and ensure he or she is relaxed and alert. The assessment sets the learning plan for Maths-Whizz, so it’s important! But don’t worry if the assessment doesn’t go perfectly, because the nature of Maths-Whizz means that we will continually assess the student in Tutor mode.

Once the assessment is complete, login to your account page and check your child’s Maths-Whizz report card. Discuss the results with your child – this is a good opportunity to find out what subjects are causing your child problems – and agree a schedule for learning Maths with Maths-Whizz. We recommend 2-3 times per week, for 20-30 minutes. You’ll see the best progress with about 90 minutes per week, which tends to improve maths age scores by 2 years in 12 months of use.

There is also a video tutorial on the Assessment.

Responding to the announcement, Madeleine White, says: “The ERAs are judged by teachers and lead educationalists who are looking for products that ‘stand out from the crowd’ in terms of their ease of use and effectiveness in the learning environment. The fact that we have been shortlisted is great testimony to the service that Maths-Whizz offers its users and we are thrilled with this recognition alone. We won an ERA award last year, so are very hopeful that we can repeat that triumph.”

The ERAs celebrate the resources, services and people that make a practical impact on learning and the day-to-day work of teachers in the classroom. They highlight the quality and diversity of educational products and resources, excellent educational establishments and the most dedicated members of the teaching profession and supplies industry.

The winners will be announced on Friday 16 March 2012; the second evening of The Education Show, at a gala event at The National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham.

As you know, students love earning Maths-Whizz credits. So create a week’s homework challenge for your pupils to earn as many credits as they can, setting a specific daily time-limit (keeping to the best practice recommendations of between 30 and 90 minutes of Maths-Whizz a week for each student of course ?). Areas covered include problem, data handling and measure and they’ll have a great time collaborating on how to make this work. Questions they will need to address:

• How many credits are worth one pound/ unit of currency? Class discussion.
• How will you measure the number of credits earned. Make a group responsible for collecting this information.
• How will the information be charted – ie translated into money raised? Make a group responsible for creating fundraising sheets.
• Which is the hardest working ‘credits earned’ day and which the least ? Make a group responsible for analyzing and showing this.

…and of course the final result will be money collected for a worthy cause, which might indeed include school funds!

As a new Blogger I should first introduce myself. Having been with Maths-Whizz for close to eight years it has been exciting and enthralling to witness the companies advancement. Combined with the global trends in education and the accelerating rate of international growth for Maths –Whizz the coming years look like being even more exciting.

Up to August 2011 my contribution has been mostly focused on the UK but during that time apart from UK schools I visited schools in Colombia, India, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Qatar and UAE.

Having been involved with Maths-Whizz schools in Dubai since 2007 and Jordan 2009 I took up my current role as Director of Middle East in August 2011. Since then I have been joined by Sonja Jelley as Country Manager for UAE and her office manager Aileen Madayag . In future you will be hearing from Sonja as well as the country manager for Jordan, Dana Bosheh.

Together with the Ministries of Education and private schools Maths-Whizz will face the exciting challenge of educating the growing population of young people in the Middle East. As we have already demonstrated, we can show that Maths can be fun as well as being essential to maximise future prospects.

Over the coming months and years through the Middle East team and I will keep you informed of our developments and progress through you can help in any way please leave a comment or Email us directly through www.whizz.com.

WhizzProf loves numbers and loves to share this love with anyone and everyone! What better day to do so than on Valentine’s Day, a day when symmetrical hearts are decorated, flowers (remember Fibonacci?) are given by the dozen, and Valentines cards are sorted.  And at the end of the day, we can count all the ways we love thee!¬

1. Exchanging approximately 1 Billion Valentine’s Day Cards worldwide (according to the U.S Greeting Card Association).
2. More than 650 million Valentine’s will be exchanged by children ages 6 to 10 with teachers, classmates and family members.
3. Out of all Valentine’s exchanged teachers will receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts.
4. 35 million heart shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine’s Day.

Whizz Prof’s love of Maths was inspired by all the ways Maths is used in everyday life and how it makes solving complex problems a little easier.

Your home and classrooms may have a fair share of these hearts, flowers, cards and candies, so why not use Valentine’s Day to inspire the love of Maths in your children and students?   Estimate the number of sweets in a jar, compare the number of cards (or chocolates) sold on Valentine’s Day compared to other holidays, or use symmetrical hearts to build a number line.   You might help start a love that lasts a lifetime!

First time blogger coming to you from a product perspective. So let’s start with a little about me; I’m Manesh Mistry, Product Manager for Maths-Whizz Teachers’ Resource. Having worked on this resource for over 5 years, its only natural that I have a passion for this resource and its natural evolution towards fulfilling a teacher’s need.

In this blog, I would like to introduce updates to Maths-Whizz Teachers’ Resource, and also highlight just how far we have taken the resource in the last few years.

For those that are unfamiliar with the resource; Its a service offered to schools for teachers and their students, to help teach maths within the modern day classroom. Used on interactive boards, and within IT suites during dedicated maths lessons, using clever, fun animations, the resource is very effective at conveying those difficult maths topics that students sometimes find hard to get their head around.. The service presence internationally has grown vastly over the years. We are now fully aligned to many international curriculum’s and the resource is used right across the world (Current curriculum alignments include the following countries: USA states, UK, Scotland and Russia).

Now let’s cover the recent updates;
-The resource has recently been aligned to the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, as well as alignments to existing curriculum’s past and present for the UK.

-Certificates have been introduced, students can now print off a certificate at the end of every session to keep track of their progress. – great to show at parents evenings!!

-More investigations added, these have become increasingly popular with teachers, They encourage great interaction amongst students, as they work towards solving mathematical problems.

Ending this post, I would like to give a very brief summary of  evolution the resource has seen so far. Back in 2006, the resource started as a CD and was a BETT award winner in its very first year of launch. On the success of this, future developments saw new tools being introduced, the interactive board is a glowing example of this- teachers absolutely love it!! 2009 saw the resource move online, reaching out to schools across the world. At present the online version is  continually getting  updated with useful tools and features. but the key behind our success is your continued feedback.

As I mentioned above, as a company, we always value your opinion, so if you already use Maths-Whizz Teachers’ Resource, and would like to provide us some feedback to consider for future development, please leave a comment here, or respond below. We look forward to hearing from you.

So while a teacher might not be able to check in with each and every student on a daily basis (especially when school is closed) Maths-Whizz enables them to easily and personally motivate students using tools featured in our Teachers’ Resource. From a messaging system to individualised certificates, we’ve provided educators with numerous options. Our development team has also packed a lot of goodies and incentives (have you seen the way Whizzers decorate their bedrooms?) for students that keep them excited and interested in Maths-Whizz, and therefore maths. See this great Managing Motivation Video for tips.