Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.
— David Hilbert
quoted by Nicholas Rose, Mathematical Maxims and MinimsIt’s like asking why Beethoven’s Ninth symphony is beautiful. If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren’t beautiful, nothing is.
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Mathematical Juggling
Math Teachers at Play #31 via Homeschool Bytes
Math Teachers at Play #31 offers ten posts about learning and teaching math (appropriate for the 10th month of ’10) at Homeschool Bytes.
Mixing play with learning math is so much more effective for my kids. So, here are some great ideas on how to take the “boring” out of learning math and make it an Adventure . . .
Mathematics and Multimedia Carnival #4 via Wild About Math
Welcome to the 4th edition of the Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival … Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being 1 and 2. Four is also a highly composite number … 4 is the smallest squared prime (p2) and the only even number in this form ….
Reminder: Math Posts Wanted
Now is the time to send in your blog posts for the next Math Teachers at Play blog carnival, coming this Friday to Homeschool Bytes. You don’t have to be a teacher to join in the fun! MTaP covers mathematics from preschool through the first year of calculus, and we welcome any posts about learning, teaching, or just playing around with math.
- Check out last month’s MTaP carnival.
Would you like to host an edition of the MTaP? Read How To Host a Blog Carnival, and then drop me an email or leave a comment on this post.
Lewis Carroll’s Logic Challenges
Symbolic Logic Part I was published in 1896. When Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) died two years later, Part II was lost. Because they couldn’t find the manuscript, many people doubted that he ever wrote Part II. But almost eighty years after his death, portions of Part II were recovered and finally published. The following puzzles are from the combined volume, Lewis Carroll’s Symbolic Logic, edited by William Warren Bartley, III.
These puzzles are called soriteses or polysyllogisms. Carroll began with a series of “if this, then that” statements. He rewrote them to make them more confusing, and then he mixed up the order to create a challenging puzzle.
Given each set of premises, what conclusion can you reach?
10/10 is Powers of 10 Day
Alex Deals Out Equations
Looking around the room, Alex saw kids and parents moving from one table to another. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the Homeschool Math Carnival. She had six junior-high and high school students at her table, waiting while she shuffled her deck of cards.
“Okay,” she said. “These are Math Cards. I took out the face cards, so we just have numbers.”
Quotable: Times Tables Are Not Math
Important note: times tables are not math. Math doesn’t need to be made fun; it already is fun. Memorizing your times tables is a rote activity, it requires a fair bit of repetition for most, and it may need to be made fun. Just saying.
— Dan Finkel
A game to end all times tables drills: Damult Dice
It’s a great game! Do click over to Dan’s blog and check it out:
And while we’re on the topic of times tables, Maria posted an article, too:
Old Dogs, New Math
Thanks to the generosity of The Experiment, a nonfiction publisher in New York City, I have one copy of Old Dogs, New Math: Homework Help for Puzzled Parents to give away, which will be mailed directly to the winner AT A U.S. ADDRESS.
You can see the publisher’s description of the book and read an excerpt here.
They also sent me a review copy, which I hope to write a blog post about sometime soon — though with our schedule this semester, I can make no promises. But from a quick flip through the book, I’ll give it a definite thumbs-up!
How to Enter the Giveaway
Remember, the book must be mailed to a U.S. address. If you live in the U.S., you have two ways to enter the contest:
- Leave a comment on this post answering the question: What part of math do you find the hardest to understand or to explain to your children?
- Post about the contest on your own blog (or on a homeschooling or parenting forum, if you don’t have a blog), then come here and add a comment with the link to your post.
You may do both, to double your chances — but please make sure your link is in a separate comment from your answer to the question, or I may forget to count it separately.
I will accept entries for a week and a half, through Friday, October 8th Monday, October 11th. (Extended due to family issues that made the weekend too busy!) After that, I will count up all the entries (numbered in order of their appearance in the comment section) and go to RANDOM.ORG to generate the winning number. I will email the winner to get your address, which I’ll then pass on to the publisher so they can send you your book.
Update
And the winner is . . . Lakshmi. Congratulations!
Thank you to everyone who participated in the giveaway. I enjoyed reading your comments, and you’ve given me several ideas for future blog posts.
Cousin Sam’s 15 Challenge
Uncle Will drove in from the tree farm to drop off Alex’s cousin, Sam, so he could go to the Homeschool Math Carnival.
“Hey, Sam,” Alex said. “What’s in the sack?”
Sam smiled. “A secret puzzle.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Leon whined. “We’ll be busy with our own games at the carnival. Can’t you show us now?”
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 