[Photo by theogeo.]
Christmas afternoon is a slow time at our house. How shall we while away the hours until the turkey is done? With math, of course!
Check out this puzzle from Blinkdagger.
MathCounts — Ready or Not, Here It Comes
[Feature photo above “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch” from CheezBurger.com.]
Okay, kids, I know you’re on break, but Mr. Grinch would tell you that’s no excuse to laze around playing games and eating cookies. There is only a month until our school MathCounts competition, which doesn’t give you much time to prepare. I’ve collected several resources to build up your mental muscle-power before the test…
Contig Game: Master Your Math Facts
[Photo by Photo Mojo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]
Yahtzee and other board games provide a modicum of math fact practice. But for intensive, thought-provoking math drill, I can’t think of any game that would beat Contig.
Math concepts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, order of operations, mental math
Number of players: 2 – 4
Equipment: Contig game board, three 6-sided dice, pencil and scratch paper for keeping score, and bingo chips or wide-tip markers to mark game squares
Set Up
Place the game board and dice between players, and give each player a marker or pile of chips. (Markers do not need to be different colors.) Write the players’ names at the top of the scratch paper to make a score sheet.
More Free Math Resources
[Photo by One Laptop Per Child.]
Once again, I am adding to my Free (Mostly) Math Resources page. Here are a handful of helpful websites for teaching math…
Math Club: Counting 101
[Fature photo above by ThunderChild tm.]
The last couple of weeks, in Math Club, we’ve been learning to count. My new set of MathCounts students have never heard of combinatorics, so we started at the very beginning:
- Counting and Probability I by Keone Hon
- Counting and Probability by Jason Batterson
Writing to Learn Math II
[Photo by Andy Hay.]
In addition to all the funny Google searches, I get plenty of normal inquiries about math topics. People come here looking for help with fractions, word problems, and math club activities — no surprise, those — but I would never have predicted the popularity of the search topic “writing in math class.”
Last year, I compiled a variety of math journal resources, but I’ve found many more since then, especially for older (high school and college) students. So if you’re looking for new ways to get your math students writing…
A Mathematician for President
In 1876, a politician made mathematical history. James Abram Garfield, the honorable Congressman from Ohio, published a brand new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem in The New England Journal of Education. He concluded, “We think it something on which the members of both houses can unite without distinction of party.”
30+ Things to Do with a Hundred Chart
[Photo by geishaboy500 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]
Are you looking for creative ways to help your children study math? Even without a workbook or teacher’s manual, your kids can learn a lot about numbers. Just spend an afternoon playing around with a hundred chart (also called a hundred board or hundred grid).
My free 50-page PDF Hundred Charts Galore! printables file features 1–100 charts, 0–99 charts, bottom’s-up versions, multiple-chart pages, blank charts, game boards, and more. Everything you need to play the activities below and those in my new 70+ Things to Do with a Hundred Chart book.
Download Free “Hundred Charts Galore!” Printables
Shop for “70+ Things To Do with a Hundred Chart” Book
And now, let’s play…
Review: Kiss My Math
Pre-algebra students stand at the threshold of adventure. Behind them lie the rocky plains of school arithmetic. Ahead, the trail winds into a murky, tangled woods and disappears in the shadows. Who knows what monsters might live in a place like that?
Actress and math maven Danica McKellar has traveled through the pre-algebra jungle and beyond, up the slopes to higher math. She survived the journey, and now, on the heels of her bestselling book for math-phobic middle schoolers, she has written Kiss My Math to guide uncertain students along their way.
Unlike the case with most Hollywood movies, this sequel is an improvement.
Math Club Plans
[Photo by FXR [aka Soundz’FX].]
Our homeschool co-op classes start today, and I’m not ready. I never am. Life keeps going, anyway.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 