“Learning to think a problem through can be hard work—and that is exactly what makes it fun.”
—Denise Gaskins
CREDITS: Today’s quote is from my book Let’s Play Math: How Families Can Learn Math Together—And Enjoy It. Background photo courtesy of Chris_Parfitt via Flickr (CC BY 2.0, text added).
One of the most persistent math myths in popular culture is the idea that mathematics is primarily about getting right answers.
The truth is, the answer doesn’t matter that much in math. What really matters is how you explain that answer. An answer is “right” if the explanation makes sense.
And if you don’t give an explanation, then you really aren’t doing mathematics at all.
Here is a short sequence of numbers. Can you figure out the rule and fill in the next three blanks?
2, 3, 5, 7, ___, ___, ___, …
Remember, what’s important is not which numbers you pick, but rather how you explain your answer.
Perhaps the sequence is the prime numbers?
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, …
The prime numbers make a wonderful sequence, though it isn’t the one I was thinking of.
From elementary to high school, manipulatives to Minecraft, there’s plenty of fun to be had at this month’s math education blog carnival:
Enjoy!
“So, here is issue 88 of the Math(s) Teachers at Play blog carnival. This acts as a round up of some cool blog posts that have been published since issue 87 over at cavmaths. As usual people have submitted entries, which I will supplement with some posts that I have really enjoyed reading in the last few weeks…”
Click here to read the blog carnival post at mathematicsandcoding.
[Feature photo (top) by Pratham Books, 88 cards photo by Bailey Weaver, both via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]
My daughters didn’t want to admit to knowing me, when I stopped to take a picture of the sidewalk along a back street during our trip to Jeju. But aren’t those some wonderful fractions?
What do you see? What do you wonder?
Here is one of the relationships I noticed in the outer ring:
And this one’s a little trickier:
Can you find it in the picture?
Each square of the sidewalk is made from four smaller tiles, about 25 cm square, cut from lava rock. Some of the sidewalk tiles are cut from mostly-smooth rock, some bubbly, and some half-n-half.
I wonder how far we could go before we had to repeat a circle pattern?
Murphy’s Law struck today, and the paperback books that looked so good in the proof copies turned out to have a cover glitch, at least in the ones I ordered from Amazon. I’m working with CreateSpace to make sure it gets straightened out—but that means the books may show up as “unavailable” for awhile.
As with any print-on-demand glitch, if you got a badly printed book you can ask Customer Support to replace it.
It could be worse. The interior of the book is fine, at least in my copy. And of course, the ebook versions are totally unaffected.
If you are trying to use the discount code for newsletter subscribers, remember that it’s good through the end of the month. I may even extend the expiration date, if this cover problem persists, but I sure hope to have it fixed in a couple of days.
The July “Let’s Play Math” newsletter went out earlier this week to everyone who signed up for Tabletop Academy Press math updates.
Inspired by my recent Infinite Cake post, this month’s issue focuses on math proofs without words. What fun!
If you missed this month’s edition, no worries — there will be more playful math snacks coming soon. Click the link below to sign up today!
And remember: Newsletter subscribers are always the first to hear about new books, revisions, and sales or other promotions.
For help learning the Times Table facts, check out my multiplication blog post series:
Encourage your family to play with math every day:
To create your own Happy Mathematics Day sign, see yesterday’s post.
I’m still having fun with David Coffey’s meme, which started a couple of years ago with this blog post:
Would you like to create a math holiday, too? Try one of these sign generators:
What kind of math will you celebrate? Leave a link to your Happy Math Day post in the comments below!
Puzzles, comics, problem-solving, and mathy conversations with kids—you’ll find all this and more at the new math education blog carnival. Check it out, click some links, and enjoy!
“Hello, and welcome to the 87th Edition of the monthly blog carnival “Math(s) Teachers at Play”. For those of you unaware, a blog carnival is a periodic post that travels from blog to blog. They take the form of a compilation post and contain links to current and recent posts on a similar topic. This is one of two English language blog carnivals around mathematics…
This month has been fairly busy in the way of maths blogs and we have a treat for you, so to start the carnival here are the submissions we received…”
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 