## Test Yourself: Logic

Can you solve the Wason Selection Task puzzle at Text Savvy blog? [Blog has disappeared.]

## More Math Resources

My math resources page continues to grow, with new discoveries and with pages I had simply overlooked. (Shame on me!) As I add new entries, I will occasionally post them on the blog as well. Like this:

1000 Problems to Enjoy
A large collection of challenge problems for grades 7-9, or for anyone who wants to play around with math and logic. Answers are in the Doc files, but don’t peek. Figure it out for yourself, and use the file only to check your work. It’s no fun when someone just gives you the answer!

Hexa-Trex Puzzle of the Day
“Object of the game: Find a path through all the tiles to make a math equation.” Difficulty ranges from easy to quite challenging.

## Solving Complex Story Problems

[Dragon photo above by monkeywingand treasure chest by Tom Praison via flickr.]

Let’s play around with a middle-school/junior high word problem:

Cimorene spent an afternoon cleaning and organizing the dragon’s treasure. One fourth of the items she sorted was jewelry. 60% of the remainder were potions, and the rest were magic swords. If there were 48 magic swords, how many pieces of treasure did she sort in all?

[Problem set in the world of Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Modified from a story problem in Singapore Primary Math 6B. Think about how you would solve it before reading further.]

How can we teach our students to solve complex, multi-step story problems? Depending on how one counts, the above problem would take four or five steps to solve, and it is relatively easy for a Singapore math word problem. One might approach it with algebra, writing an equation like:

$x - \left[\frac{1}{4}x + 0.6\left(\frac{3}{4} \right)x \right] = 48$

…or something of that sort. But this problem is for students who have not learned algebra yet. Instead, Singapore math teaches students to draw pictures (called bar models or math models or bar diagrams) that make the solution appear almost like magic. It is a trick well worth learning, no matter what math program you use.

## Carnival of Homeschooling Cruises Alaska

The Carnival of Homeschooling takes an Alaskan cruise this week at About Homeschooling. Stop by to enjoy the great scenery and interesting blog posts.

Edited to add: And the Carnival of Education hits a palindromic number with edition #121. Good reading, including this short article from Bogusia, inventor of the fun and challenging Hexa-Trex puzzle:

Why we learn math (or anything for that matter)

## Free (Mostly) Math Resources on the Internet

Please take a few minutes to look at my handy new math resource page (in the “For Your Information” box at the top of my sidebar). I moved all the math resource links from my sidebar onto a page of their own, where I could add descriptions and comments.

Whew! That was a lot of work. I hope you find it useful. If you know of any other great math pages I should add to the list, please tell me.