What Is a Math Journal?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

In my previous post, I encouraged parents, homeschoolers, and teachers to think of math as a nature walk through an infinite world of wonder.

A math journal is a record of your child’s journey through this world of mathematics.

In a math journal, children explore their own concepts about numbers, shapes, and patterns through drawing or writing in response to a question. Journaling teaches them to see with mathematical eyes — not just to remember what we adults tell them, but to create their own math.

Journaling brings math back into the liberal arts. It makes abstract ideas accessible and stretches children’s understanding, building math fluency and creating a solid foundation for future learning.

Continue reading What Is a Math Journal?

Playful Math Carnival 153 via Find the Factors

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Would you like some great ideas for playing math with your kids?

Iva Sallay put together a delightful collection of games, activities, and inspiration in the latest Playful Math Carnival:

You’ll find a fantastic collection of maker math, games, puzzles, activities, inspiration, and other mathematical delights.

What are you waiting for? Come join the fun!

Click Here to Read the Carnival Blog

Help Us Keep the Carnival Going

The Playful Math Blog Carnival wants you!

Each monthly Playful Math Carnival brings you a great new collection of puzzles, math conversations, teaching tips, and all sorts of mathy fun. It’s like a free online magazine of mathematical adventures, helpful and inspiring no matter when you read them.

The carnival is a joint effort. We depend on our volunteer hosts to collect blog posts and write the carnival each month.

Putting together a blog carnival can be a lot of work, but it’s a great opportunity to share the work of bloggers you admire and to discover new math-friends online. I love that part of being a host!

Classroom teachers, homeschoolers, college professors, unschoolers, or anyone who likes to play around with math — if you would like to take a turn hosting the carnival, please speak up!

CREDITS: Feature photo (top) by Iva Sallay.

Preorder 312 Things To Do with a Math Journal

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Parents and teachers, are you looking for new ways to help your children learn math?

In a math journal, children explore their own ideas about numbers, shapes, and patterns through drawing or writing in response to a question.

Journaling encourages students to develop a rich mathematical mindset. They begin to see connections and make sense of math concepts. They grow confident in their ability to think through new ideas.

All they need is a piece of paper, a pencil, and a good prompt to launch their mathematical journey.

My new book 312 Things To Do with a Math Journal includes number play prompts, games, math art, story problems, mini-essays, geometry investigations, brainteasers, number patterns, research projects, and much more.

These activities work at any grade level, and most can be enjoyed more than once. It doesn’t matter whether your students are homeschooled or in a classroom, distance-learning, or in person. Everyone can enjoy the experience of playing around with math.

Continue reading Preorder 312 Things To Do with a Math Journal

The Creative Way To Help Your Kids Learn Math

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Are you a parent, homeschooler, or teacher? Do your children struggle to learn math? Are you worried about them falling behind?

So many parents (and teachers, too!) feel like they are “not a math person,” yet they know how important math is for their children to learn. How can we teach something we don’t really understand ourselves?

Others feel comfortable with math themselves — and may even love it — yet still struggle to pass on their knowledge to their kids. How can we share the joy we see in numbers, shapes, and patterns with youngsters who think they hate math?

Continue reading The Creative Way To Help Your Kids Learn Math

How Will You Celebrate this Epic Twosday?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Tomorrow is Tuesday 2/22/22 (or 22/2/22, if you prefer). What a wonderfully epic Twosday!

Here’s a puzzle your family or class may enjoy…

The “All 2s” Challenge

Use only the digit 2, and try to use as few of them as you can for each calculation. You may use any math operations you know.

For example:
0 = 2 − 2
8 = 2 + 2 + 2 + 2

  • Can you find a way to make 8 using fewer than four 2s?
  • What other numbers can you make?
  • Can you calculate all the numbers from 1–20? 1–100?

Putting 2 in Perspective

You might enjoy practicing your math art skills with this 2-digit challenge from Steve Wyborney.

How many blocks make the digit 2? How did you count them?

Playful Math #152: Auld Lang Syne Edition

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Welcome to the 152nd 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. There’s so much playful math to enjoy!

We didn’t have a volunteer host for January, so I’m squeezing this in between other commitments. This is my third no-host-emergency carnival in the last year, which is NOT sustainable. If you’d like to help keep the Playful Math Carnival alive, we desperately need hosts for 2022!

By tradition, we start the carnival with a puzzle or activity in honor of our 152nd edition. But if you’d rather jump straight to our featured blog posts, click here to see the Table of Contents.

Math Journaling with Prime Numbers

Cool facts about 152: The eighth prime number is 19, and 8 × 19 = 152. When you square 152, you get a number that contains all the digits from 0–4. You can make 152 as the sum of eight consecutive even numbers, or as the sum of four consecutive prime numbers.

But 152 has two real claims to fame:

  • It’s the smallest number that is the sum of the cubes of two distinct odd primes.
  • And it’s the largest known even number you can write as the sum of two primes in exactly four ways.

So here’s your math investigation prompt:

  • Play around with prime numbers. Explore their powers, their sums, and anything else about them you like.
  • What do you notice? What do you wonder?
  • What’s the most interesting number relationship you can find?

Continue reading Playful Math #152: Auld Lang Syne Edition

Playful Math Carnival 151 via Math Hombre

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Would you like some great ideas to launch a new year of playful math?

John Golden put together a delightful collection of games, activities, and inspiration in the latest Playful Math Carnival:

You’ll find a fantastic collection of maker math, games, puzzles, activities, inspiration, and other mathematical delights.

What are you waiting for? Come join the fun!

Click Here to Read the Carnival Blog

Help Us Keep the Carnival Going

The Playful Math Blog Carnival wants you!

Each monthly Playful Math Carnival brings you a great new collection of puzzles, math conversations, teaching tips, and all sorts of mathy fun. It’s like a free online magazine of mathematical adventures, helpful and inspiring no matter when you read them.

The carnival is a joint effort. We depend on our volunteer hosts to collect blog posts and write the carnival each month.

Putting together a blog carnival can be a lot of work, but it’s a great opportunity to share the work of bloggers you admire and to discover new math-friends online. I love that part of being a host!

Classroom teachers, homeschoolers, college professors, unschoolers, or anyone who likes to play around with math — if you would like to take a turn hosting the carnival, please speak up!

CREDITS: Feature photo (top) by Sharon McCutcheon via Unsplash.com.

Did You Get Your Puzzle Calendar?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Earlier this week, I sent out my last Playful Math Newsletter to email subscribers.

Most months, my newsletter includes tips and activity ideas for playing math with your kids. But from time to time, I give away a free sample of whatever I’ve been working on — an early draft of something that will eventually show up in one of my books or printable activity guides.

This month’s gift was a Pentomino Puzzle Calendar, a daily adventure in spatial reasoning.

(If you’re a subscriber, be sure to check your inbox!)

For those who haven’t signed up yet, follow this link for more information:

Join Our Playful Math Email Newsletter

And if you hit “Reply” to your welcome email and ask for a printable Pentomino Puzzle Calendar of your own, I’ll send you one right away.

Advent Math Activity Calendars

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Once again, the delightful Nrich Maths website offers a seasonal selection of activities to encourage your children’s (and your own!) mathematical creativity.

Click the images below to visit the corresponding December Math Calendar pages.

For Primary Students

Here are twenty-four activities for elementary and middle school, one for each day in December during the run-up to Christmas.

2021 Primary Advent Calendar

When you get to the Nrich website, click a number to go to that day’s math.

For Secondary Students

Here are twenty-four favorite activities for middle and high school, one for each day in December in the run-up to Christmas.

2021 Secondary Advent Calendar

When you get to the Nrich website, click a number to go to that day’s math.

More Holiday Math

I encourage you also to explore my HUGE holiday math post:

Or check out these pages for more ideas:

Have fun playing math with your kids!

“Black Friday” Shopping Season Discount

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

‘Tis the season for discount sales. I usually ignore the annual Black Friday push, because NOT shopping is an even better way to save money.

But this year, my publishing company Tabletop Academy Press has decided to join in the fun.

So if you’re looking for new math activities to play with your kids, I’ve just added several new books and discount bundles to our online store — including a huge variety of math journaling resources.

And for the next week or so, you can get 15% off anything in our store by using the coupon code TABLETOP15 at checkout.

But act fast! The discount code expires December 5th.