6 of the best arithmagon resources and activities for KS3/4 maths
Your three-point plan to improving students' maths skills at every level…
- by Teachwire
An arithmagon is, according to NRICH, a polygon with numbers at its vertices which determine the numbers written on its edges.
A what? Basically, one of these:
Here is a selection of some of the best resources, activities and lesson ideas based around this particular polygonal piece of mathematics.
1 | Arithmagon basics
This interactive page takes students through the steps of working out an arithmagon, starting with the simple idea of giving them the corner values and asking them to find the edge values.
You can practice this as much as you please with new numbers before moving on to being given the edge values and having to work out the corner ones.
There’s also a multiplication version, which you can find here.
But to start with you can find the basic addition version here.
2 | Colin Foster KS3 lesson plan
Learning mathematics is about making sense of mathematical situations, and this lesson plan from Colin Foster provides puzzles that offer an interesting context in which students can make predictions and conjectures and develop their powers of mathematical reasoning.
Pupils will investigate the relationship between numbers in a diagram and be able to justify their reasoning.
3 | Multiple resources
At Mr Barton Maths, Mr Barton states his five reasons for why he loves arithmagons, and number one on the list is this:
‘They are so simple to create and don’t require any special resources.’
This is great news for us because it means he’s created arithmagon exercises involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and highest common factor, and that’s before he’s even got to his algebra-based resources.
You’ll find links to all of these here.
4 | Year 7 worksheets
If you’re after some quick printouts for Key Stage 3 this two-page PDF gets progressively more difficult over nine sections (with three arithmagons in each).
They’re free to use with no signup required.
5 | Advanced arithmagons
If you teach older students and want to use arithmagons in a more-advanced setting then this resource picks up where the last left off.
Accompanying teachers’ notes can be found here.
And the printable worksheets can be found here.
6 | Pentagon arithmagon
Challenge your students further with square and pentagon arithmagon puzzles.
Find these free puzzles, and their solutions, here.
Browse our round-up of factoring quadratics worksheets.
