Playing with a new image editor, I came across this Winston Churchill quote. What a great description of how it feels to learn math!
If you have a student who struggles with math or is suffering from a loss of enthusiasm, check out Jo Boaler’s free online course on developing a mathematical mindset:
Or explore some of the playful activity ideas for all ages in her Week of Inspirational Math.
Check out the new playful math blog carnival at Three J’s Learning blog. Joshua has put together a great collection of math games, activities, and teaching tips:
The carnival features shape puzzles, absolute value, prime numbers, pigs in pens, fair sharing, talking with kids, thoughtful essays, and even explosions. Along with a tribute to Maryam Mirzakhani, with mathematical ideas to explore in her honor.
Click here to go read the carnival blog
And if you’re a blogger, be sure to submit your blog post for next month’s carnival!
Past carnivals are still full of mathy treasure. See them all on Pinterest:
CREDITS: “Inscribed Polyhedron” photo by thekirbster via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
A friend shared this video, and I loved it! From Kent Haines, a father who happens to also be a math teacher…
“I hope that this video helps parents find new ways of interacting with their kids on math topics.”
If you enjoyed Kent’s video, you’ll love Christopher Danielson’s book and blog.
It’s a short book with plenty of great stories, advice, and conversation-starters. While Danielson writes directly to parents, the book will also interest grandparents, aunts & uncles, teachers, and anyone else who wants to help children notice and think about math in daily life.
“You don’t need special skills to do this. If you can read with your kids, then you can talk math with them. You can support and encourage their developing mathematical minds.
“You don’t need to love math. You don’t need to have been particularly successful in school mathematics. You just need to notice when your children are being curious about math, and you need some ideas for turning that curiosity into a conversation.
“In nearly all circumstances, our conversations grow organically out of our everyday activity. We have not scheduled “talking math time” in our household. Instead, we talk about these things when it seems natural to do so, when the things we are doing (reading books, making lunch, riding in the car, etc) bump up against important mathematical ideas.
“The dialogues in this book are intended to open your eyes to these opportunities in your own family’s life.”— Christopher Danielson
Talking Math with Your Kids
CREDITS: “Kids Talk” photo (top) by Victoria Harjadi via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). “Parent Rules” by Kent Haines.
Check out the new carnival of playful math for all ages at Math Mama Writes blog. Each month’s carnival brings you a great new collection of puzzles, math conversations, crafts, teaching tips, and all sorts of mathy fun.
This month’s post features books, animations, puzzles, and games. Early math, high school math, and writing in math class. Probability, statistics, and teaching tips. And much more!
Click Here to Read the Carnival Blog
Do you write an education or family blog? Classroom teacher, math coach, homeschooler, parent, college professor, unschooler — anyone interested in helping kids play around with math? Please consider volunteering to host the MTaP blog carnival for one month.
We still need volunteer hosts for fall semester 2017. Or plan ahead: 2018 is wide open.
You choose the month that fits your schedule and decide how much effort you want to put in. Writing the carnival can take a couple of hours for a simple post — or you can spend several days searching out and polishing playful math gems to share.
If you want more information, read the MTaP Math Education Blog Carnival home page. Then let me know which month you want.
CREDITS: Organ of Notre-Dame de Paris photo by Eric Chan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 
