Since a teacher exchange to Germany and seeing this activity used with the English support assistant to help teach english to the german children, I have been using lottery tickets in my class as a fun mental maths starter activity.

Create a list of sums/questions with the answers forming a particular pattern on the lottery grid (base questions on topic/ability). The children shade the correct number and they can hold it up and it's easy to check at a glance which children have understood.

I have also asked questions in welsh/french to practise incidental language use.