Our homeschool co-op classes are done for the semester, so this will be my last compilation of blackboard quotes for awhile. I love collecting quotations, however, so I will be treating you to some of my favorites “just for teachers” over the summer. Stay tuned!
It is better to solve one problem five different ways, than to solve five problems one way.
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.
Continue reading Quotations VIII: The Essence of Mathematics
It began with some 4th-8th grade friends who met in my dining room to work math puzzles and play games. At first, a few of the kids wondered how anyone could have fun with math. But we did enjoy ourselves, and Math Club grew until we couldn’t fit anyone else around the table.
The new Carnival of Mathematics is up and running at Modulo Errors. Highlights for me included:
Teaching Math
One opinion about when to introduce formal arithmetic (workbooky math) to children. What is the opportunity cost of too-early mathematics?
Criss-Cross Multiplication
An algorithm for two-digit multiplication that is easier for mental math.
Party For Polyglots
A brain teaser puzzle, not too difficult.
Coloring Knots
A topological doodling project.
For anyone who can’t make it to Peoria this weekend but is still interested in my math workshops — and just in case we run out of handouts at said workshop — I am posting my math handouts here. These are pdf files, so if you have a sluggish dial-up connection like ours (ah, the joys of rural life!), you can right-click and save each file as a download.
This week’s Carnival of Homeschooling treats us to snippets of poetry along with a variety of informative, inspiring articles about education in general and homeschooling in particular. The Tutor writes:
It cannot be a coincidence that it is National Poetry Month and I’m hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling this month. I mean a homeschooler can never resist the chance to turn something into a learning opportunity. So, prepare a nice cup of tea, find a comfy spot, call the kids to come read over your shoulder, and let’s away to the Carnival!
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
I missed getting an entry into the latest Carnival of Mathematics, which went up a day early at Science and Reason. (Serves me right for procrastinating!)
As usual, most of the articles are well over my head.
The carnival begins with a tribute to Field’s Medalist Paul Cohen (April 2, 1934 – March 23, 2007), the man who settled the first of the famous Hilbert Problems, the Continuum Hypothesis. Then come the math articles.
Here are my favorites:
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[Feature photo above by Remy Steinegger via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).]
Another look at the Bill Gates proportion… Even though I couldn’t find any data on his real income, I did discover that the median American family’s net worth was $93,100 in 2004 (most of that is home equity) and that the figure has gone up a bit since then. This gives me another chance to play around with proportions.
So I wrote a sample problem for my Advanced Math Monsters workshop at the APACHE homeschool conference:
The median American family has a net worth of about $100 thousand. Bill Gates has a net worth of $56 billion. If Average Jane Homeschooler spends $100 in the vendor hall, what would be the equivalent expense for Gates?
[Feature photo above by Baluart.net.]
A friend gave me permission to turn our email discussion into an article…
Can you help us figure out how to figure out this problem? I think we have all the information we need, but I’m not sure:
The average household income in the United States is $60,000/year. And a man’s annual income is $56 billion. Is there a way to figure out what this man’s value of $1mil is, compared to the person who earns $60,000/year? In other words, I would like to say — $1,000,000 to us is like 10 cents to Bill Gates.
My algebra students could stand to hear this, too:
(2)(-4x2)n is not equal to (-8 )nx2n.
AAAAAARRRRGGGHH!!!!
From Secret Message to My Calculus Students at Learning Curves blog.
These puzzles look like a lot of fun for whole number and integer arithmetic review. I think they would make a great warm-up at the beginning of a class or math club meeting.
Hat tip: MathPuzzle.com
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 
