Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
Playing Math with A.A. Milne
2020 Mathematics Game — Join the Fun!
New Year’s Day
Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time.
However, go in, community. New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.
— Mark Twain
Letter to Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 1863
quoted in Early Tales & Sketches, Vol. 1: 1851-1864 (affiliate link)
If you’d like to enjoy a mathematical New Year’s Resolution, may I recommend Evelyn Lamb’s Math Reading Challenge? I haven’t decided if I’m going to follow along, but it does look like fun.
Meanwhile, I do resolve to challenge myself with more math puzzles this year. Would you like to join me?
Here’s a great way to start: with the 2020 Mathematics Game!
Playing with Math: My Favorite Posts
The articles that attract a browsing reader aren’t the same as the ones that pull on my heart. Yesterday, I shared my most-visited blog posts of 2019. Today, I give you my most-loved posts of the year.
#12
A fun challenge, based on an old family-favorite game.
Players around the world have played poker-style dice games for ages. Reiner Knizia included this mathematical version in his book Dice Games Properly Explained…
#11
Math art — what a delightful way to learn!
Updated Geometric Coloring Designs
I created these coloring pages for my homeschool co-op math kids, and then collected them into a downloadable 42-page PDF coloring book for your family to enjoy…
#10
I could watch this video every day.
Do you have trouble believing that math can be beautiful?
In “Inspirations,” artist Cristóbal Vila creates a wonderful, imaginary work studio for the amazing M.C. Escher…
#9
One of my favorite hobbies is collecting inspirational quotes as I read.
Good problems can help us fall in love with math and make a delicious meal of it, sinking our teeth into tough problems, tenderized by their intrigue…
#8
From the beginning of this blog, more than a decade ago, my desire has been to help homeschooling parents (and other teachers) change how they look at math.
Math Makes Sense — Let’s Teach It That Way
Annie Fetter is talking to classroom teachers, but her message is just as important for homeschoolers. Math is all about making sense. Let’s help our kids see it that way…
#7
An excerpt from the draft of my coming-someday-it-always-takes-longer-than-I-expect Prealgebra & Geometry Games book.
Did you know that numbers can be polite? In math, a polite number is any number we can write as the sum of two or more consecutive positive whole numbers…
#6
A sweet little game that was a big hit with my K–2nd grade homeschool co-op math class this year.
Playing with a Hundred Chart #35: The Number Grid Game
You’ll need a 6-sided die, a hundred chart (printables here), and a small token to mark each player’s square. A crumpled bit of colored construction paper works well as a token…
#5
This number-pattern activity was so much fun with my upper-elementary class.
Here’s a math puzzle for palindrome week — or any time you want to play with math…
#4
For years, I’ve been meaning to create an email series about learning math through play. This year I finally did.
8 Weeks of Playful Math for Families
Yes, your kids CAN learn to love math. Keep your children’s math skills fresh with my 8-week email series of math games and activities…
#3
Not a single blog post but a whole new feature, which I hope to continue in the new year.
One of the best ways we can help our children learn mathematics (or anything else) is to always be learning ourselves…
#2
The Playful Math Blog Carnival is a labor of love for all our volunteer hosts. This year, August was my month to play.
Playful Math Education Carnival 130
The Playful Math Carnival is like a free online magazine devoted to learning, teaching, and playing around with math. It’s back-to-school time in the U.S., so this month’s edition focuses on establishing a creative math mindset from preschool to high school…
#1
But the work closest to my heart this year wasn’t math at all. My daughter finally concluded her fantasy novel series, the major project of her teen homeschooling years. When she gave me the manuscript to edit, I didn’t get any sleep that night. She had me hooked — I had to find out how it ended!
The Final Books from a Homeschooled Teen Author
Do you enjoy binge reading tales of epic fantasy? Love exploring magical worlds wracked by the struggle of good against evil? Then don’t miss Teresa Gaskins’s four-book serial adventure, The Riddled Stone…
How About You?
Do you play math with kids? Please tell us one (or a few) of your favorite things. What touched your heart this year?
CREDITS: “Sparkling heart” photo (top) by Jamie Street on Unsplash.
Top Playful Math Posts of 2019
Here are my most-visited posts and pages in 2019. So many ways to play with math!
#12
I love books, don’t you?
Do you want to enrich your mind with the great ideas of mathematics? Are you looking for a good book to whet your child’s appetite? Then the following pages of “living” math books are for you…
#11
A logic challenge that doubles as addition practice. Or is it the other way around?
Thirty-One comes from British mathematician Henry Dudeney’s classic book, The Canterbury Puzzles…
#10
Turn a regular deck of cards into math flashcards. Adaptable to any operation.
Review Game: Once Through the Deck
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…
#9
Seasonally popular enough to make the list every year. You’ll find even more mathy fun in my updated Holiday Math Carnival.
Christmas Math Puzzles and Activities
We interrupt our regularly scheduled math program to bring you the following Christmas links…
#8
A counting game for all ages.
Fan Tan may also be called Crazy Sevens. Like any folk game, it is played by a variety of rules around the world…
#7
The updated post (which ranked at #18 for the year) is better: My Favorite Math Games. Eventually I hope it will surpass this old one.
20 Best Math Games and Puzzles
Over the years, Let’s Play Math blog has grown into a sprawling mess, which can make it very hard to find the specific math tip you’re looking for…
#6
What a wonderful, inspiring movie! You may also enjoy the related Women of Mathematics Carnival.
Hidden Figures Teaching Resources
Before computers were machines, computers were people who computed things. This complicated task often fell to women because it was considered basically clerical. That’s right: computing triple integrals all day long qualified as clerical…
#5
One of my all-time favorites, still helpful after all these years.
Number Bonds = Better Understanding
Number bonds let children see the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. Subtraction is not a totally different thing from addition; they are mirror images…
#4
I intended to write a follow-up series based on this post. Maybe in 2020?
Fraction notation and operations may be the most abstract math monsters our students meet until they get to algebra. Before we can explain those frustrating fractions, we teachers need to go back to the basics for ourselves…
#3
A dark horse in third place! I never expected this post to draw much interest.
My high school class ended the year with a review of multiplying and factoring simple polynomials. We played a matching game, and then I gave them this puzzle worksheet…
#2
A perennial favorite: widely adaptable, easy to learn, and kids enjoy it.
The Game That Is Worth 1,000 Worksheets
Have you and your children been struggling to learn the math facts? The game of Math Card War is worth more than a thousand math drill worksheets, letting you build your children’s calculating speed in a no-stress, no-test way…
#1
A well-deserving winner, with activities for preschool through middle school.
30+ Things to Do with a Hundred Chart
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…
CREDITS: “Sparkling 2019” photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash.
Playing with Math @ Math Hombre Blog
I can’t believe I’ve fallen so far behind in my blogging! Life happens to us all, doesn’t it?
But here is something you won’t want to miss.
Check out the new Playful Math Blog Carnival at Math Hombre blog. John put together a great collection of number puzzles, math games, stories, and math art:
It’s like a free online monthly magazine of mathematical adventures.
Enjoy!
Click here to go read the carnival blog
Do You Want More Ways to Play with Math?
Past carnivals are still full of mathy treasure. See them all on Pinterest:
- Browse all the past editions of the Math Teachers at Play blog carnival
- Or scroll back through the archives on my blog.
And if you’re a blogger, be sure to submit your blog post for next month’s carnival!
Playing with a Hundred Chart #35: The Number Grid Game
This is a pretty simple game, but it makes a nice variation on the Race-to-100 game for young children who need to work on counting by tens from any number.
See the Number Grid Game (PDF)
How to Play
You’ll need a 6-sided die, a hundred chart (printables here), and a small token to mark each player’s square. A crumpled bit of colored construction paper works well as a token.
Take turns rolling the die. If you roll:
- 1: Move either 1 or 10 squares, your choice.
- 2: Move either 2 or 20 squares.
- 3–6: Move that number of squares.
The first player to reach the final square by exact count wins the game.
Variation #1: For a shorter game, the first player to move off the board wins. You don’t have to hit the final square by exact count.
Variation #2: For a longer game, if you cannot move your full roll forward, you must move backward. Rolling 6 is a “wild card” — you can move any number from one to ten.
Variation #3: Count down. Start at the highest number on your chart and subtract each roll, moving toward zero. If you have a chart like the original shown above, a player whose move goes past zero into negatives will add the number on their next roll.
More Ways to Play on a Hundred Chart
A hundred chart can provide mathematical play from preschool to high school. The list on my blog began many years ago with seven activities, games, and logic puzzles.
Wow, has it grown!
Discover 30+ Things To Do with a Hundred Chart
* * *
This blog is reader-supported.
If you’d like to help fund the blog on an on-going basis, then please join me on Patreon for mathy inspiration, tips, and an ever-growing archive of printable activities.
If you liked this post, and want to show your one-time appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal: paypal.me/DeniseGaskinsMath. If you go that route, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you.
Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!
“Playing with a Hundred Chart #35: The Number Grid Game” copyright © 2019 by Denise Gaskins.
Morning Coffee – 4 November 2019
One of the best ways we can help our children learn mathematics (or anything else) is to always be learning ourselves.
Here are a few stories to read with your Monday morning coffee:
- Don’t miss Playful Math Carnival 132, featuring delightful math books and games for all ages.
- Speaking of math games, I love Jenna Laib’s Simple-but-High-Leverage Game Collection.
“Games aren’t just about practice and fluency. My favorite games create opportunities for learning, too. They spark discourse, promote the use of strategies, and allow students to dig into the mathematics.”
—Jenna Laib
The Simple-but-High-Leverage Game Collection: Making Games Routine
- Mark Chubb poses a pattern block polygon investigation in An Example of Teaching Through Problem Solving.
- Matt Coaty offers a nice variety of math journal prompts in Math Reflections and Sentence Stems.
- Manan Shah muses on Learning Math as an Adult (over the age of 30).
- Have you read Pam Harris’s Development of Mathematical Reasoning series? Check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Well worth your time!
“The teacher’s role is to help students change the way they think, in increasingly sophisticated ways. The goal is not answers. The goal is development. We don’t need students who can just answer a multiplication question, we need students who can reason multiplicatively.”
—Pam Harris
The Development of Mathematical Reasoning
CREDITS: Feature photo (top) by Kira auf der Heide via Unsplash. “Morning Coffee” post format inspired by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader.
Playing with Math @ Arithmophobia No More
Check out the latest carnival of playful math for all ages:
Sonya put together this carnival of mathematical fun with numbers and shapes, delightful books, and games for all ages.
“There are two types of math games/activities. The first type of game is primarily for practicing math facts. It’s my least favorite math game … The other type of math game develops mathematical thinking. Those are my favorite. They are the kind of game/activity that makes everyone want to play.”
—Sonya Post
Each monthly Playful Math Education Blog Carnival brings you a great new collection of puzzles, math conversations, crafts, teaching tips, and all sorts of mathy fun.
It’s like a free online magazine of mathematical adventures, helpful and inspiring no matter when you read them. Enjoy!
Click Here to Read the Carnival Blog
Help Us Keep the Carnival Going
The Playful Math Blog Carnival wants you!
The carnival is a joint effort. We depend on our volunteer hosts to collect blog posts and write the carnival each month.
Putting together a blog carnival can be a lot of work, but it’s a great opportunity to share the work of bloggers you admire and to discover new math-friends online. I love that part of being a host!
Classroom teachers, homeschoolers, college professors, unschoolers, or anyone who likes to play around with math — if you would like to take a turn hosting the carnival, please speak up.
New Math Board Game: MULTI on Kickstarter
If the math classic The Product Game got together with Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe, this game would be their child.
According to game creator Federico Chialvo, “MULTI is a fantastic 2-player math game designed with the joy of mathematics in mind. This game is so fun your kids won’t want to stop playing, and neither will you!”
Originally designed for students in 2nd-5th grade, MULTI helps children develop fluency with multiplication facts and the relationship between multiples and factors. Even better, the rich strategy and gameplay can be enjoyed by people of all ages.
If you want to play math with an elementary-age child, check out the Kickstarter:
Click Here for the MULTI Game on Kickstarter
“Mathematics is a polarizing topic! For some, it is a fountain of wonder, beauty, and intrigue. For others, it is a cold dark thing, something to be avoided or even feared. Yet, my experience has shown that everyone can find joy in mathematics when it is presented in the right way.”
—Federico Chialvo
MULTI – Math Board Game – Fun For All Ages!
Morning Coffee – 28 October 2019
One of the best ways we can help our children learn mathematics (or anything else) is to always be learning ourselves.
Here are a few stories to enjoy with your Monday morning coffee:
“When you’re working every day, you’re not thinking, ‘What impact is this going to have on the world?’ You’re thinking, ‘I’ve got to get this right.’”
—Gladys West
quoted in Dr. Gladys West: The Black Woman Behind GPS Technology
- Jenna Laib discusses how learning the non-European roots of mathematics can enrich children’s understanding of math in The Story of Fibonacci, and the Math Ethnic Studies Framework.
- You may also enjoy Simon Gregg’s thoughts on Fibonacci.
- I like to keep a quick game in reserve for spare time in my homeschool co-op class. Kent Haines explains Sprouts and suggests ways to launch math discussions.
- Did you get lost in high school math? Ben Orlin offers a brief introduction to The Four Words at the Heart of Calculus.
- Rupesh Gesota shares how his students think their way through a challenging algebra problem in Re-learning and Enjoying Polynomial Division with students and Part 2.
“I don’t get irritated by these mistakes. I desperately wait for such mistakes. Yes! Because I think it is a golden opportunity for the teacher to spot a student thinking this way. It presents just the right context and time for driving an enriching mathematical conversation in the whole class.”
—Rupesh Gesota
Part-2: Re-learning and Enjoying Polynomial Division with students
- Rachel Chou encourages us to think more deeply about the things our students memorize in Teaching the Distributive Property.
“To teach students SSS congruence without pointing out why this is so interesting is harmful for two reasons. First of all, this is an amazing result. It is the our job to point out amazing results! Triangles are rigid figures in a way that other polygons are not.”
—Rachel Chou
Teaching the Distributive Property
CREDITS: Feature photo (top) by Kira auf der Heide via Unsplash. “Morning Coffee” post format inspired by Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 