# Maths Warmups

TODAY IS.....
One of my favorite warm-up exercises for Math Club is “Today is __.” Each student invents one or more mathematical expressions for today’s date and writes his or her favorite on the board for all to admire. Answers range from lazy (24×1 — at least it’s an excuse to talk about identity elements) to unnecessarily repetitive (1+1+1+…), but we usually get a few gems as well.

### $external image latex.php?latex=\binom{6}{3}+++\sqrt[4]{2^{8}}+&bg=ffffff&fg=000000&s=0$

I need a longer activity for this Friday’s co-op class. Maybe we’ll make our own version of Theoni Pappas’s calendar: I’ll print out blank calendar pages and have the kids fill in expressions for March 2009.

## Maths Starter a Day.

This site features a calendar that has links to a different maths problem for each day. The problems are based on a range of maths topics and encourage problem solving skills as they provide JUST enough information for the students to solve the problem. (Can be quite frustrating for some students at first until they start to develop their problem solving skills.)
I have used this in class as an introduction to the Maths lesson and it is also an excellent activity for early finishers. The problems range in difficulty and I would suggest that they are probably best suited to high grade 3 students and upwards.
All problems have the answers and usually some demonstration / explanation of how to solve the problems at the bottom of the page.