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…”
Math Concepts: division as equal sharing, naming fractions, adding fractions, infinitesimals, iteration, limits Prerequisite: able to identify fractions as part of a whole
This is how I tell the story:
We have a cake to share, just the two of us. It’s not TOO big a cake, ‘cuz we don’t want to get sick. An 8 × 8 or 16 × 16 square on the graph paper should be just right. Can you cut the cake so we each get a fair share? Color in your part.
How big is your piece compared to the whole, original cake?
But you know, I’m on a diet, and I just don’t think I can eat my whole piece. Half the cake is too much for me. Is it okay if I share my piece with you? How can we divide it evenly, so we each get a fair share? How big is your new piece? Color it in.
How much of the whole, original cake do you have now? How can you tell?
I keep thinking of my diet, and I really don’t want all my piece of cake. It looks good, but it’s still just a bit too big for me. Will you take half of it? How big is that piece?
Now how much of the whole, original cake do you have? How could we figure it out?
[Teaching tip: Don’t make kids do the calculation on paper. In the early stages, they can visualize and count up the fourths or maybe the eighths. As the pieces get smaller, the easiest way to find the sum is what Cohen does in the video below—identify how much of the cake is left out.]
Even for being on a diet, I still don’t feel very hungry…
“… a captivating fantasy story with a well-thought-out plot … people who like medieval-style fantasies with wraiths, spirits, and even an attacking swamp tree will enjoy the story. I certainly did, and the excitement, adventure, and suspense will easily keep the reader’s attention …”
As a fantasy fan myself, I agree that Teresa did a great job on this book. She improved in every way from Book #1 — more world building, more complex plotting, and a deeper emotional identification with the characters. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.
Socks Are Like Pants, Cats Are Like Dogs by Malke Rosenfeld and Gordon Hamilton is filled with a diverse collection of math games, puzzles, and activities exploring the mathematics of choosing, identifying and sorting. The activities are easy to start and require little preparation.
Math Concepts: basic facts of addition, multiplication. Players: one. Equipment: one deck of math cards (poker- or bridge-style playing cards with the face cards and jokers removed).
The best way to practice the math facts is through the give-and-take of conversation, orally quizzing each other and talking about how you might figure the answers out. But occasionally your child may want a simple, solitaire method for review.
The Internet boasts a wide-ranging assortment of math websites, and for years I maintained (or mostly neglected) a huge page of reference links. This spring I’ve been working on the paperback edition of my book—with its appendix of favorite books and internet sites—and I decided to revise my blog links to match.
Blogging while we watch the tide come in.
So this week, I’m in Jeju, South Korea, visiting my daughter who teaches English there. In between seeing touristy sites and gorging ourselves on amazingly delicious food, she took me to a beautiful coffee shop that overlooks the beach in Aewol.
Great place to work on my blog!
The long monster list morphed into eight topical pages. I hope you find something useful.
Playing tourist with two of my daughters at Halla Arboretum.
I will try to keep these pages up to date, but the Internet is volatile. If you find a broken link, you can search for the website by name or enter the defunct URL into the Internet Wayback Machine at Archive.org.
Changing of the guard at Old City Hall, Jeju-si.
And if you know of a fantastic website I’ve missed, please send me an email (LetsPlayMath@gmail.com, or use the comment form on my “About” page). I appreciate your help.
The July “Let’s Play Math” newsletter went out earlier this week to everyone who signed up for Tabletop Academy Press math updates.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 