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What a Teacher Wants To Hear
I finally get it — you don’t have to worry about memorizing a bunch of formulas if you just understand where they come from. You can always figure them out again.
— unidentified student in Doug’s class
from the comments on Kate’s post Formulas? What Formulas?
New Domain Name
Technophobe that I am, it has taken me way too long to do this, but I finally bought my own domain name:
All old links should still work perfectly. But if you are willing to take a minute to update your Blogroll or other links to my posts, I would certainly appreciate it!
Quotable: Teaching
Teaching any subject has a funny way of educating the teacher at least as much as the student.
— Chris Birk
How I Became a Better Writer Thanks to Distracted, Hungover College Kids
We all know it already, but I like the way he said it, and the blog post is worth reading. I wish this guy was teaching my college kids. Heck, my college kids wish he was teaching them — or at least, they wish that their teachers valued tight writing and would “coat undergraduate papers in ink.”
Math Teachers at Play #24
[Photo by internets_dairy.]
Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — which is not just for math teachers! If you like to learn new things and play around with ideas, you are sure to find something of interest. Let’s start the mathematical fun with an arithmetic card game in honor of our 24th edition and a few number puzzles:
Review: Math Mammoth
When Maria of Homeschool Math Blog asked if I would review her Math Mammoth curriculum, I jumped at the chance. I’ve always enjoyed her blog posts, and I liked the worksheets I had seen on her website. (Maria gives away more than 300 pages absolutely free!)
She sent me her then-new 4th grade worktexts, and Kitten and I dug in.
Well, that was longer ago than I care to admit. But of course, it takes quite a bit of daily use before one can be absolutely sure of one’s opinion about a homeschool program — or at least, it does for me. Too many times a homeschool resource will look great in the catalog, and we’ll start it with high hopes only to bog down in the day-to-day grind and abandon it after a few weeks or months. So I wanted to give Math Mammoth a thorough workout before I wrote this review.
And all excuses aside, I really am a pro at crastinating…
My aim is to help parents and teachers teach math so our children and students can really understand what is going on. I’ve strived to explain the concepts so that both the teacher and the student can “get it” by reading the explanations in the books.
— Maria Miller
author of Math Mammoth worktexts
and Homeschool Math Blog
Game: Target Number (or 24)
[Photo by stevendepolo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]
Math concepts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, powers and roots, factorial, mental math, multi-step thinking
Number of players: any number
Equipment: one deck of playing cards (face cards and jokers removed), pencils and scratch paper, timer (optional)
Set Up
All players must agree on a Target Number for the game. Try to choose a number that has several factors, which means there will be a variety of ways to make it. Traditionally, I start my math club students with a target of 24.
Shuffle the deck, and deal four cards face down to each player. (For larger target numbers, such as 48 or 100, deal five or six cards to each player.) The players must leave the cards face down until everyone is ready. Set the remainder of the deck to one side.
Quotable: Make Them Laugh
You have to make them laugh. You must never underestimate the power of laughing in a maths classroom.
— Carol Roberts
quoted in Laughing lesson Adult learning
Or, as Donald O’Conner put it:
I think this is my biggest failing as a teacher: I am too much the straight man.
Math Teachers at Play #23 via Math Recreation
The new blog carnival is posted and full of fun:
Enjoy!
Next month, the carnival is coming back home to Let’s Play Math! — and in fact, I’ve already started collecting articles for it. If you would like to contribute, you can use this handy submission form. If you’d like to host a future edition (July or later), let me know.
Valentine’s Day: Say It with Music
If you have trouble seeing the video, it’s here on YouTube. For more information about the singers (and lyrics to this and other songs), check out the Klein Four webpage.
P.S.: You may also enjoy the Valentine’s Day Fail over at Abstruse Goose.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 