Here are two poems in honor of pi, from the Mathematical Poetry site:
Blog
Happy Pi Day I
It can be of no practical use to know that Pi is irrational, but if we can know, it surely would be intolerable not to know.
I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning Pi Day when I was in school, but any excuse to celebrate math sounds like fun. March 14 at 1:59 (a.m. or p.m.) is about as close as the calendar can get to 3.14159…
In Honor of the Standardized Testing Season…
[Feature photo above by Alberto G. (CC-BY-SA-2.0) via flickr.]
The school experience makes a tremendous difference in a child’s learning. Which of the following students would you rather be?
I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours. I found it quite enthralling.
— Agatha Christie
An Autobiography
…or…
“Can you do Addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?”
“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.”
“She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted. “Can you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight.”
“Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice replied very readily: “but—”
“She can’t do Subtraction,” said the White Queen. “Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife — what’s the answer to that?”
“I suppose—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. “Bread-and-butter, of course.”
“She can’t do sums a bit!” the Queens said together, with great emphasis.— Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass
…in other words…
If you could lead through testing, the U.S. would lead the world in all education categories. When are people going to understand you don’t fatten your lambs by weighing them?
— Jonathan Kozol
at Westfield State College’s 157th Commencement
Continue reading In Honor of the Standardized Testing Season…
Math Quotes VII: Problems Worthy of Attack
Time to catch up on our blackboard quotes.
Two Fathoms Deep and Stuck in Muck
“I suppose you are two fathoms deep in mathematics, and if you are, then God help you. For so am I, only with this difference: I stick fast in the mud at the bottom, and there I shall remain.”
— Charles Darwin
quoted in the Platonic Realms collection
Math Carnival #2
The math geeks have hit the town at the Second Carnival of Mathematics, which features a wide variety of articles to enjoy—many of which are admittedly over my head.
I liked these:
My Favourite Theorems 1 (Halting Problem)
It’s been a very busy few weeks, and I never got around to posting last week’s carnivals. Here are a couple of math-related posts from last week’s Carnival of Homeschooling:
How the four operations become two
Words of Wisdom from Reader’s Digest
And from the Carnival of Education:
You Know It’s Winter When…
You know it’s winter when you drive the kids to karate practice, and along the way they alternate between arguing with each other and singing along with the radio — and when you come out after practice, before you can drive them home, you have to scrape the frost off the inside of your windshield.
Puzzle: Logic Test
If you enjoy Raymond Smullyan’s The Lady or the Tiger and similar puzzles, you will probably have fun with this Logic test, posted by JD2718. JD has a wide variety of other math puzzles at his site, so take the time to browse a bit.
The Case of the Mysterious Story Problem
[Feature photo above by Carla216 via flickr (CC BY 2.0). This post was rescued from my old blog.]
I love story problems. Like a detective, I enjoy sifting out clues and solving the mystery. But what do you do when you come across a real stumper? Acting out story problems could make a one-page assignment take all week.
You don’t have to bake a pie to study fractions or jump off a cliff to learn gravity. Use your imagination instead. The following suggestions will help you find the clues you need to solve the case.
Improper Fractions: A Mathematical Trauma
Feature photo (above) by Jimmie via flickr. Photo (right) by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr.
Nearing the end of Miquon Blue today, my youngest daughter encountered fractions greater than one. She collapsed on the floor of my bedroom in tears.
The worksheet started innocently enough:
![\frac{1}{2} \times 8=\left[ \quad \right]](https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=%5Cfrac%7B1%7D%7B2%7D+%5Ctimes+8%3D%5Cleft%5B+%5Cquad+%5Cright%5D&bg=ffffff&fg=303030&s=2&c=20201002)
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 