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Do You Teach Math to Young Children?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Sue VanHattum is trying to convince the publishers that this excellent book would reach a wider audience if they made it available at a lower price. What do you think?

As anyone who has taught or raised young children knows, mathematical education for little kids is a real mystery. What are they capable of? What should they learn first? How hard should they work? Should they even “work” at all? Should we push them, or just let them be?

There are no correct answers to these questions, and Zvonkin deals with them in classic math-circle style: He doesn’t ask and then answer a question, but shows us a problem — be it mathematical or pedagogical — and describes to us what happened. His book is a narrative about what he did, what he tried, what worked, what failed, but most important, what the kids experienced.

This book is not a guidebook. It does not purport to show you how to create precocious high achievers. It is just one person’s story about things he tried with a half-dozen young children. On the other hand, if you are interested in running a math circle, or homeschooling children, you will find this book to be an invaluable, inspiring resource. It’s not a “how to” manual as much as a “this happened” journal. … Just about every page contains a really clever teaching idea, a cool math problem, and an inspiring and funny story.

— Paul Zeitz
Introduction to Math from Three to Seven

Super Bowl XLVI Math Worksheet and Football Comic

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Lance Friedman of MathPlane.com has posted two bits of fun in honor of Super Bowl XLVI. (Click the images to go to Lance’s site.) And if you’re a homeschooler, Currclick is offering a Super Bowl Mini-Helper free this week.

NFL Math Quiz

Continue reading Super Bowl XLVI Math Worksheet and Football Comic

Fibonacci Numbers and Plants

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Have you ever wondered why so many plants grow in Fibonacci Numbers? Vi Hart offers a great explanation (with hands-on activities) in these three videos — and she introduces a new species called the slugcat, which my daughter thinks is adorable.

Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [1 of 3]

Continue reading Fibonacci Numbers and Plants

Math Teachers at Play #46: Living Books for Math

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — which is not just for math teachers! Here is a smorgasbord of ideas for learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to pre-college. Some articles were submitted by their authors, others were drawn from the immense backlog in my blog reader. If you like to learn new things, you are sure to find something of interest.

Living Books for Math

A child’s intercourse must always be with good books, the best that we can find… We must put into their hands the sources which we must needs use for ourselves, the best books of the best writers.
…
For the mind is capable of dealing with only one kind of food; it lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body.

— Charlotte Mason
Toward A Philosophy of Education

Princess Kitten and I took a longer than usual holiday break from homeschooling, but now I’m in plan-for-the-new-semester mode. I hope to include more living math in our schedule, so I decided to illustrate this edition of the MTaP carnival with a few of my favorite living math books. I’d love to hear more living book suggestions in the comments!

If you click on a book cover, the links take you to Amazon.com, where you can read reviews and other details (and where I earn a small affiliate commission if you actually buy the book), but all of these books should be available through your public library or via inter-library loan.

Let the mathematical fun begin…

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #46: Living Books for Math

2012 Mathematics Game

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

photo by Creativity103 via flickr

For our homeschool, January is the time to assess our progress and make a few New Semester’s Resolutions. This year, we resolve to challenge ourselves to more math puzzles. Would you like to join us? Pump up your mental muscles with the 2012 Mathematics Game!

Rules of the Game

Use the digits in the year 2012 to write mathematical expressions for the counting numbers 1 through 100.

Bonus Rules
You may use the overhead-bar (vinculum), dots, or brackets to mark a repeating decimal.

You may use multifactorials:

  • n!! = a double factorial = the product of all integers from 1 to n that have the same parity (odd or even) as n.
  • n!!! = a triple factorial = the product of all integers from 1 to n that are equal to n mod 3

[Note to teachers: Math Forum modified their rules to allow double factorials, but as far as I know, they do not allow repeating decimals or triple factorials.]

Continue reading 2012 Mathematics Game

Math Teachers at Play #45 via Virtual Math Tutor

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

The Math Teachers at Play Carnival is up at Virtual Math Tutor for your browsing pleasure. Articles range from preschool to high school level in math, and topics include puzzles, worksheets, games, teaching tips, ideas for the math/science lover on your Christmas gift list, and the cutest math monster I’ve seen in ages. Great fun!