Math Teachers at Play #44 via Nucleus Learning

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
by fdecomite via flickr

The new Math Teachers at Play blog carnival is up for your browsing pleasure:

If you think the carnival seems shorter than usual, you’re right. We had many more submissions, but it appears that the blog carnival website is having trouble again. If your article is missing (as mine is), I’m sorry! Please try again next month.

This is the first time I ever hosted a blog carnival so please bear with me.

While reading the posts submitted to this month’s Math Teachers at Play blog carnival, I was struck by how visualization is very important in teaching math, and just math in general. I was happy to read all the “visualization” posts since my recent interest is exactly in visual representations and how they help in learning, especially learning math.

For instance…

Go read the entire article at Nucleus Learning.

What to Do with a Hundred Chart #27

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Photo by geishaboy500.]

It began with a humble list of 7 things to do with a hundred chart in one of my out-of-print books about teaching home school math. Over the years I added a few new ideas, and online friends contributed still more, so the list grew to its current length of 26. Recently, thanks to several fans at pinterest, it has become the most popular post on my blog:

Now I am working several hours a day revising my old math books, in preparation for publishing new, much-expanded editions. And as I typed in all the new things to do with a hundred chart, I thought of one more to add to the list:

(27) How many numbers are there from 11 to 25? Are you sure? What does it mean to count from one number to another? When you count, do you include the first number, or the last one, or both, or neither? Talk about inclusive and exclusive counting, and then make up counting puzzles for each other.

Share Your Ideas

Can you think of anything else we might do with a hundred chart? Add your ideas in the Comments section below, and I’ll add the best ones to our master list.

More Halloween Math

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
by kennymatic via flickr

An Apollonian pumpkin patch and Sierpinski candy corn:

Great ideas for mathy porch decorations:

My favorite blood-thirsty online game from Murderous Maths:

And here’s some less-violent holiday math for the younger set:

Do you know of more mathy fall fun? Share your links in the comments section!

Easy-to-Make Counting Rope

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

This is wonderful! I am definitely not a crafts-person, but I can’t wait to make some of these. If I can just find my daughter’s pony beads….

From Cindy at love2learn2day, who got the idea from a math conference workshop by Kim Sutton.

Krista at the LivingMathForum wrote, “We’ve used these for several years. My son even made a bunch of them a few years ago and sold them at a homeschool resource fair. We always have one in most of our board games to help younger children add up their die rolls. I find them relaxing for some reason, just moving the beads along the cord, and my son will sometimes sit and listen to me reading, etc., and just manipulate the beads.”

Playful Math Lessons

You can use these math activities to play with your counting rope:

Math Teachers at Play #43 via Maths Insider

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
photo by Giulia Forsythe via flickr

Welcome! I’m Caroline Mukisa from Maths Insider and the host of the the 43rd edition of the Math Teachers at Play carnival!

I’m delighted once again to be presenting a really cool range of math related blog posts and articles. This month, you’ll get to savor math posts related to McDonalds, Dexter, war, an ancient game, an inventor and more!

Do bookmark this page so you can come back and read any of the posts you don’t get time to read right now!

Go read Math Teachers at Play Carnival Number 43 – Fast Food, Crime Drama and More!

More Than One Way to Solve It, Again

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
photo by Annie Pilon via flickr

We continue with our counting lessons — and once again, Kitten proves that she doesn’t think the same way I do. In fact, her solution is so elegant that I think she could have a future as a mathematician. After all, every aspiring novelist needs a day job, right?

If only I could get her to give up the idea that she hates math…

Permutations with Complications

How many of the possible distinct arrangements of 1-6 have 1 to the left of 2?

— Competition Math for Middle School, by J. Batterson

Continue reading More Than One Way to Solve It, Again

Math Carnival Update, and an Algebra Puzzle

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Oops! I misread my calendar last week. The Math Teachers at Play blog carnival will be this Friday at Maths Insider. That means you still have today and tomorrow to send in your blog post submissions using the handy submission form. See you at the carnival!

In the meantime, let me share with you this monster algebra puzzle from the Well-Trained Mind forum. Simplify:

[ \left ( {x}^{\frac {3}{2x}} \right )^{\frac{x}{9}} \times \left ( x^{\frac{9}{15}} \right )^{\frac{5}{18}}]^3

How would you explain this problem to a beginning algebra student who has just learned the exponent rules? Or to his non-mathy mom?

And Don’t Miss…

These other mathy blog carnivals: