Playful Math Education Carnival 171: Modern Math Artists

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Welcome to the 171st edition of the Playful Math Education Blog Carnival — a smorgasbord of delectable tidbits of mathy fun. It’s like a free online magazine devoted to learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to high school.

Bookmark this post, so you can take your time browsing over the next week or so.

There’s so much playful math to enjoy!

By tradition, we start the carnival with a puzzle/activity in honor of our 171st edition. But if you’d rather jump straight to our featured blog posts, click here to see the Table of Contents.

Try This Puzzle/Activity

171 is a triangular number, the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 18:

  • 1 + 2 + 3 + … + 17 + 18 = 171.
  • Can you think why a number like this is called “triangular”?
  • What other triangular numbers can you find?

Also, 171 is a palindrome number, with the same digits forward and backward. It’s also a palindrome of powers:

  • 171 = 52 + 112 + 52
  • 171 = 23 + 43 + 33 + 43 + 23

So in honor of our 171st Playful Math Carnival, here is a palindrome puzzle that leads to an unsolved question in math:

  • Does every number turn into a palindrome eventually?

palindrome number activity

Click here for all the mathy goodness!

Middle School Math Proof

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Homeschool Memories…

Kitten (my daughter) and I sat on the couch sharing a whiteboard, passing it back and forth as we took turns working through our prealgebra book together.

The chapter on number theory began with some puzzles about multiples and divisibility rules.

Continue reading Middle School Math Proof

Gameschooling Math

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Games are fun, building a positive attitude toward math. They give students a refreshing break from textbook work and make kids willing to practice their math. Games make math practice enjoyable, something children want to do. We can happily work through many more calculations during a game than anyone would ever want to do on a homework page.

Benefits of Math Games

But more important than the fun, math games push children to think about what numbers mean and how they work. The numbers in a math game are not just meaningless abstractions, but tools that players can use to gain an advantage over their opponent.

A good math game reinforces the idea that math is about reasoning, using the things you know to figure out what you need. Math is not just about getting the right answer. It’s about what goes on in your head on the way to that answer. The answer itself is merely a side-effect. of what really matters, your thinking.

A good math game helps students develop flexibility, the ability to adapt, applying what they have learned to new situations, finding a way to work out the things they haven’t mastered yet. All these add up to a more robust type of mathematical fluency than what many people imagine possible.

Continue reading Gameschooling Math

Math Musings: When Should We Work on Memorization?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Having knowledge in long-term memory can be very helpful in solving problems.

But master problem-solver Sherlock Holmes was concerned that if he had too much knowledge in his mind, new facts would crowd out the old and cause him to forget something important:

Continue reading Math Musings: When Should We Work on Memorization?