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Math Teachers at Play Changes

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

stopwatch hand by nDevilTV[Photo by nDevilTV.]

This month, our Math Teachers at Play blog carnival switched to a once-a-month schedule. We’ll publish the third Friday of each month — which is this week!

Teachers, homeschoolers, or anyone else who enjoys playing around with math: Wednesday night is the deadline to send in your thoughts, ideas, tips, or tricks about math using this handy submission form. Posts must be relevant to students or teachers of preK-12th grade mathematics. Old posts are welcome, as long as they haven’t been published in past editions of this carnival. Most bloggers have interesting gems buried in our archives. Why not dust one off and share it anew?

Hosts Needed

With the schedule change, I also need to rebuild the queue for hosting the Math Teachers at Play. If you blog about teaching or learning in grades K-12, and if you write about math at least occasionally, I would love to have you consider hosting the carnival sometime. Here’s how to sign up:

  1. Check out the schedule on the “future hosts” tab at the MTaP home page,
  2. pick a month that fits your schedule,
  3. and then let me know.

And don’t worry if you’ve never hosted a blog carnival before — it’s easy, fun, and great publicity for your blog! I’ll send you a detailed email of instructions to get you started.

Carnival of Mathematics #59

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Welcome to the Carnival of Mathematics! We’ve got a full roster this time, including roller coasters, topological Turán theory, a mathematician arrested as a spy, a plane running out of fuel mid-flight, speed limits in Conway’s Game of Life, and much, much more…

The 59th Carnival of Mathematics features 59 blog posts (counting the multi-part posts and the carnival post itself) on a wide variety of interesting topics. Drop in and enjoy the browsing!

Math Teachers at Play #19 via Math Mama Writes

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Check out the new math carnival to discover plenty of great fun for all ages:

Are you wondering where MTAP #18 went? Here’s the story (contest-winning entry from Lisa Downing), and we’re sticking to it!

“The Odds were at odds with the Evens. It never seemed fair to them that two Odds made an Even but two Evens didn’t make an Odd…”

[Click over to MTaP #19 to read more.]

New Blog: 19 & Still Alive

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

old man by Niner[Graphite drawing by Niner.]

Niner (pronounced Neener), who takes the photos for my blog header — which reminds me, we’re about due for a new one of those… — has started a new blog. She calls it 19 & Still Alive, because “the world doesn’t end when you’re 16 if you don’t go to Prom or don’t get your driver’s license. (I never went to Prom, and I didn’t go through Driver’s ED until 17, but I’m alive, amazingly.)”

There won’t be any math there, or at least I don’t expect to see any; the blog will be mostly her rambling thoughts about whatever catches her interest. But she does have a wonderful graphite drawing based on the photo Masarwa man. On her blog, you can click the image to see him up close and personal. Wow!

Algebra: A Problem in Translation

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Photo by *Irish.]

In my post Elementary Problem Solving: The Tools, I introduced word algebra as a way to help students think their way through a story problem. In the next two posts, I showed how the tool worked with simple word problems.

Now, before I move on to focus exclusively on bar diagrams, I would like to show how word algebra can help a student solve a typical first-year algebra puzzle.

A homeschooling friend who avoided algebra in high school, trying to help her son cope with a subject she never understood, posted: “Help! Our answer is different from the book’s.” Here is the homework problem:

Josh earned $72 less than his sister who earned $93 more than her mom. If they earned a total of $504, how much did Josh earn?

Continue reading Algebra: A Problem in Translation

Contest: Write a Number Story

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

numberstoriescover

Math Mama is hosting the next Math Teachers at Play blog carnival (submit your post here) on Friday, and she writes:

The Math Teachers at Play blog carnival came out twice as #15. Since then we’ve had #16 and #17. We’d like to iron out the numbering, and so the upcoming issue will be #19. I am personally sponsoring a contest for the best little (ie, very short) story written about how the numbers got mixed up this way…

For more details, check out her blog post:

Beginning next month, the MTaP carnival will change its schedule, coming out on the third Friday of every month.

If you are interested in hosting an upcoming carnival, please let me know! Carnival posts are a lot of fun to put together, you get to discover new (or new-to-you) bloggers, and you almost always get a bit of a traffic spike. And don’t worry if you’ve never hosted a blog carnival before — just ask for my very detailed “how to” email to help you get started.

Elementary Problem Solving: Review

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Bill Watterson identifies the trouble with math problems, through the eyes of Calvin and Hobbes.]

It’s time to revive and (hopefully!) finish my long-neglected series on solving word problems in elementary mathematics. I’ve been having fun making up the problems, so now I just have to write the posts. Coming up soon:

Since it has been more than two years since the last entry, however, I wanted to take a few minutes to recap our progress so far and to refer new readers back to the original posts:

Continue reading Elementary Problem Solving: Review

My New Project: Blogging 2 Learn

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Beginning in January, I will teach a 4th-12th grade Blogging 2 Learn class through our local homeschool co-op. For now, here is my research blog, testing ideas and trying to imagine myself as a new blogger:

Have you used blogs with your students? If so, I would love to hear your suggestions and comments. And whether you are an experienced or a wanna-be blogger, please share: What do you think a “Blogging to Learn” class should cover?