This month’s Math Teachers at Play blog carnival features games, activities, and playful math from preschool to high school. Here are just a few treats from the carnival:
It’s great fun! If you’re interested in how children learn math, check it out:
Here’s a new entry for my 20+ Things to Do with a Hundred Chart post:
(29) Blank 100 Grid Number Investigations: Challenge your students to deduce the secret behind each pattern of shaded squares. Then have them make up pattern puzzles of their own.
[Created by Stuart Kay. Free registration required to download pdf printable.]
Can you think of anything else we might do with a hundred chart? Add your ideas in the Comments section below, and I’ll add the best ones to our master list.
This was a fun activity from Moebius Noodles for our PK-1st grade Homeschool Math in the Park group. The children take turns making a maze and setting a dinosaur inside. Then the other dinosaurs (parents or siblings) try to guess whether their friend is on the land or in the water.
Player #1
(1) First, draw a big circle on the white board. This is your lake.
(2) With a finger or a bit of cloth, erase a small section of the circle to create the opening for your maze.
(3) Starting at one edge of the opening, draw a random squiggle inside the circle. Make your squiggle end at the other edge of the opening.
(4) Set your dinosaur anywhere inside the maze.
Player #2
(1) Now it’s your turn to guess. Is the dinosaur standing on the land? Is it swimming in the water?
(2) How will you figure out if you guessed right?
(3) Check by jumping across the lines of the maze. Each jump takes you across a boundary: Splash! (Into the water.) Thump! (Back on the land.) Splash! Thump! … Until you reach the dinosaur inside.
(4) Or go to the maze entrance and walk your dinosaur along the path. Can you find your way?
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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!
“Maze Game: Land or Water?” copyright © 2013 by Denise Gaskins. All photos copyright © Denise Gaskins.
Many children are confused by decimals. They are convinced 0.48 > 0.6 because 48 is obviously ever so much bigger than 6. Their intuition tells them 0.2 × 0.3 = 0.6 has the clear ring of truth. And they confidently assert that, if you want to multiply a decimal number by 10, all you have to do is add a zero at the end.
What can we do to help our kids understand decimals?
Christopher Danielson (author of Talking Math with Your Kids) will be hosting the Triangleman Decimal Institute, a free, in-depth, online chat for “everyone involved in children’s learning of decimals.” The Institute starts tomorrow, September 30 (sorry for the short notice!), but you can join in the discussion at any time:
Past discussions stay open, so feel free to jump into the course whenever you can. Here is the schedule of “classes”:
Feature photo (above) by L. Marie. Math comic by davidd. Both via flickr (CC BY 2.0).
Hooray for September 25th — it’s Math Storytelling Day!
Celebrate Math Storytelling Day by making up and sharing math stories. Everyone loves a story, so this is a great way to motivate your children to play around with math. What might a math story involve? Patterns, logic, history, puzzles, relationships, fictional characters, … and yes, even numbers.
For inspiration, visit:
Have you and your children created any math stories? We’d love to hear! Please share your links in the comments section below.
Christopher Danielson, one of my favorite math bloggers, has a new book out that is perfect for parents of preschool and elementary-age children:
It’s a short book with plenty of great stories, advice, and conversation-starters. While Danielson writes directly to parents, the book will also interest grandparents, aunts & uncles, teachers, and anyone else who wants to help children notice and think about math in daily life.
“You don’t need special skills to do this. If you can read with your kids, then you can talk math with them. You can support and encourage their developing mathematical minds.
“You don’t need to love math. You don’t need to have been particularly successful in school mathematics. You just need to notice when your children are being curious about math, and you need some ideas for turning that curiosity into a conversation.
“In nearly all circumstances, our conversations grow organically out of our everyday activity. We have not scheduled “talking math time” in our household. Instead, we talk about these things when it seems natural to do so, when the things we are doing (reading books, making lunch, riding in the car, etc) bump up against important mathematical ideas.
“The dialogues in this book are intended to open your eyes to these opportunities in your own family’s life.”— Christopher Danielson
Talking Math with Your Kids
* * *
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!
“Talking Math with Your Kids” copyright © 2013 by Denise Gaskins.
This is a good way to start the week. Amazon rankings are like a roller-coaster ride, so this won’t last for long — but I’ll enjoy it while I can. 🙂
If you’re curious about my book, here is the introduction and first chapter, free to download:
[Graphic from the Desmos.com Facebook page.]
[Feature photo above by Franz & P via flickr. Route 66 sign by Sam Howzit via flickr. (CC BY 2.0)]
Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — which is not just for math teachers! If you like to learn new things and play around with ideas, you are sure to find something of interest.
By tradition, we start the carnival with a couple of puzzles in honor of our 66th edition.
Let the mathematical fun begin!
Our first puzzle is based on one of my favorite playsheets from the Miquon Math workbook series. Fill each shape with an expression that equals the target number. Can you make some cool, creative math?
Click the image to download the pdf playsheet set: one page has the target number 66, and a second page is blank so you can set your own target number.
As I’ve been working on the layout for the paperback edition of Let’s Play Math: How Homeschooling Families Can Learn Math Together, and Enjoy It!, I thought, “Why not post an excerpt?” So here is the introduction and first chapter, free to download:
This excerpt isn’t exactly how the paperback will look, because it’s based on the current ebook edition. For the paperback, I’ll be adding plenty of new illustrations — not quite a picture on every page, but close. (Yes, that’s one reason it’s taking soooo long to finish!)
Here is one of the new illustrations, along with its caption:
Fractals are self-similar, which means that subsections of the object look like smaller versions of the whole thing. Your children may enjoy making a Sierpinski triangle with tortilla chips.
Let’s Play Math should be available wherever you usually buy books.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 