Podcast: Charlotte Mason’s Living Math

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
family doing math together

Cindy Rollins, Dawn Duran, and I had a delightful chat about my new book, Charlotte Mason’s Living Math, which is now available in ebook (print editions coming soon!) at my Playful Math Store.

We talked about how math is a whole world full of big, living ideas that we can explore with our children. What it means to have a living education in math, opening our children’s minds to big ideas about the relationships of numbers, shapes, and patterns. And how to tell if our kids really understand what they are doing, or if they’re just parroting back the steps we taught them.

And lots more — listen for yourself:

“Math doesn’t have to be a drudgery, a chore that we finish so we can check it off of our list. Math can be a delight when we give children things to think about, ideas to wonder about. When we explore the world of numbers and shapes together, math can be a playful delight for the whole family.”

—Denise Gaskins

For full show notes, see Season 11, Episode 144: Charlotte Mason’s Living Math with Denise Gaskins.

 
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Are you looking for more creative ways to play math with your kids? Check out all my books, printable activities, and cool mathy merch at Denise Gaskins’ Playful Math Store. Or join my free email newsletter on Substack.

This blog is reader-supported. If you’d like to help fund the blog on an ongoing basis, then please join me on Patreon (or choose the paid level on Substack) for mathy inspiration, tips, and an ever-growing archive of printable activities.

Column Jumping: An Investigation

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
man jumping on rock columns

Charlotte Mason's Living Math ebook editionIn my new book, Charlotte Mason’s Living Math, I encourage families to explore the world of math by asking big, open-ended questions.

[Now available exclusively in my Playful Math Store! Ebook only at the moment, but print editions are coming soon.]

Here’s an example of such a question, an excerpt from my earlier book, 70+ Things To Do with a Hundred Chart: Number, Shape, and Logic Activities from Preschool to Middle School.

Have fun exploring math with your kids!

Continue reading Column Jumping: An Investigation

Make Your Own Nim Games

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
tower of rocks on a beach

Nim is a pure strategy game for two players. On each turn, players remove an option until finally no choice remains.

Game options might include:

  • How many stones to take from a pile.
  • Which position to claim on a gameboard.
  • How far to count in a given sequence.

The rules can vary at the players’ whim (as long as both players agree). How many possibilities do you start with, what are the rules for removing options, and how do you win or lose the game? Everything is open to change. And with every tweak, players must reanalyze their strategy.

Continue reading Make Your Own Nim Games

FAQ: Doing Math His Own Way

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
FAQ learning subtraction math

Isn’t it fun when children surprise us with their understanding?

All my children have figured out ways to do things in math that I would never have expected, and I’ve learned quite a bit from listening to their explanations.

But what if the child’s creative method makes it hard for them to learn what our textbook wants to teach?

Continue reading FAQ: Doing Math His Own Way

This Puzzle Is Murder

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
cartoon detective

Do you sometimes mourn (in a small way) the loss of a favorite website? I still miss the Daily Set puzzle, which was part of my morning routine for years.

But lately, I’ve added a new teaser to wake up my brain for the day.

While Set was a visual-logic puzzle, this one is straightforward (though not simple) deduction. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Continue reading This Puzzle Is Murder

Tasty Treats from the Moscow Puzzles

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
basket of apples

“Problems stressing deduction rather than calculation have a special appeal and value. They teach you to analyze, and to seek unorthodox ways of solving a problem.”

—Boris Kordemsky

Today I’m sharing a few treats from The Moscow Puzzles by Boris Kordemsky, which mixes classic brainteasers and original stumpers.

Recreational math expert Martin Gardner called Kordemsky’s book “the outstanding puzzle collection in the history of Russian mathematics.”

Have fun playing logic with your kids!

Continue reading Tasty Treats from the Moscow Puzzles

Rescuing Cool Math for Older Kids

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
mother and teen daughter do homework together

Do you have math dreams for your children?

Here are some dreams shared the authors of Avoid Hard Work!

For our children, we dream that mathematics…

  • … makes sense.
  • … is more than just arithmetic.
  • … is joyous.
  • … makes them strong.
  • … is meaningful.
  • … is creative.
  • … is full of fascinating questions.
  • … opens up many paths to solutions.
  • … is friendly.
  • … solves big problems and makes the world better.
  • … is a powerful tool they can master.
  • … is beautiful.
  • … lets them learn in their own ways.
  • … is connected to their lives.
  • … asks “why” and not just “how.”
  • … opens the world.

Continue reading Rescuing Cool Math for Older Kids

Puzzle: The Eccentric Teacher

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
boy and girl ready to solve math puzzles

One of my favorite things as a teacher was to gather a group of children to play math together.

Call it a math club or math circle, the name didn’t matter, but the activity was always fun. We did non-schooly games and projects, and the kids enjoyed both the camaraderie and the experience of thinking hard in a stress-free setting.

If you’d like to pull together a math club/circle of your own, here are some tips.

Today’s puzzle involves an unusual teacher trying to collect students to participate in a group activity…

Continue reading Puzzle: The Eccentric Teacher

Are You Smarter than a 3rd-6th Grader?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
girl raising hand in math class

Recently, I stumbled on an old blog post featuring Singapore Math problems, and it brought back memories.

Back when my children were young, the original Primary Math series from Singapore was one of my favorite math curricula. I tweaked our school program constantly, so none of my kids had the same education, but three of them spent a good part of their elementary years in those books.

And I followed the Math in Singapore 2007 blog for its single season of publication. The blog has gone the way of many others, preserved only in the Internet Archive.

In the post I re-discovered, Patsy Wang-Iverson was reporting on a week-long seminar organized by Celine Koh, who offered the following problems (adapted from school exams and study books) for teacher discussion.

How many can you solve?

Continue reading Are You Smarter than a 3rd-6th Grader?