I can’t believe we’re getting ready for the 5th Global Math Week. Wow!
Have your kids had a chance to play with Exploding Dots? Or Pencil Pushing, or Garden Paths? Or any of the other fun projects from the creative brain of James Tanton?
Check out the Global Math website for details and links.
Welcome to the 147th edition of the Playful Math Education Blog Carnival — a smorgasbord of delectable tidbits of mathy fun. It’s like a free online magazine devoted to learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to high school.
Bookmark this post, so you can take your time browsing. There’s so much playful math to enjoy!
By tradition, we start the carnival with a puzzle in honor of our 147th edition. But if you’d rather jump straight to our featured blog posts, click here to see the Table of Contents.
Many homeschooling parents dream of a mathematical magic bullet — a game, app, or book that will help their children learn math and enjoy it.
As in life, so also in math, there is no magic solution.
Do you want your children to learn math and enjoy it? Teach them to be Math Makers.
When they create their own math, students build deep, personal connections to math concepts. They think about the relationships between numbers, shapes, and patterns. Math becomes personal.
Toys, hobbies, favorite stories — all can be fodder for math creation.
Let the child choose something to think about.
Make an “I Notice” list. How does that item relate to math? What patterns or shapes can you see?
Or how would the story characters use numbers in their daily lives? Would they cook, or go shopping? Might they build something? Would they decorate it with a design? What would they count or measure?
Make an “I Wonder” list. How many different ways might you turn the things you noticed into questions? What else might you ask?
Then turn one of your noticings or wonderings into a math story, poem, puzzle, drawing, or game. Create your own math. Share your creation with family and friends.
Join the Student Math Makers team. We’d love to add your math creation to our collection and share it with viewers all around the world!
Download a Math Makers Invitation and Submission Form below:
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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!
“Notice, Wonder, Create” copyright © 2021 by Denise Gaskins. Feature photo (top) by MI PHAM via Unsplash.com.
When children create their own math, they build a deep understanding of mathematical concepts and relationships.
And it’s fun!
So take a break from your normal math program to play with creative math. Students can:
We have a few entries already in the Student Math Makers Gallery.
Click Here To Visit the Gallery
We’d love to add your students’ math to our collection and share it with viewers all around the world!
To submit a math creation, download a Math Makers Invitation and Submission Form below:
* * *
This blog is reader-supported.
If you’d like to help fund the blog on an on-going basis, then please head to my Patreon page.
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!
“New! Your Student Can Be a Math Maker” copyright © 2021 by Denise Gaskins. “Creating Math Puzzles by Sian Zelbo, the author of
Camp Logic, via NaturalMath.com.
Would anyone have guessed we’d still be under pandemic social restrictions after a year?
Certainly not me!
And now that spring is in the air … Well, at least it is in the northern hemisphere. Would that be called “Up Yonder,” as opposed to “Down Under”? … Anyway, whatever you call it, everyone is getting antsy. We’re all ready to be set free, whenever our governments give in.
To help your family keep busy through the final (we hope!) lockdowns, my publisher is offering a 30% discount coupon on everything at our Tabletop Academy Press online store.
That includes all my math books and playful activity guides, plus my daughter’s fantasy fiction epic, The Riddled Stone.
Enter STAYSAFE2021 at checkout.
(Expires March 31, 2021.)
Welcome to the 144th edition of the Playful Math Education Blog Carnival — a smorgasbord of delectable tidbits of mathy fun. It’s like a free online magazine devoted to learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to high school.
Bookmark this post, so you can take your time browsing.
There’s so much playful math to enjoy!
By tradition, we would start the carnival with a puzzle/activity in honor of our 144th edition. But this time, I want to take a peek back at the history of our carnival.
But if you’d rather jump straight to our featured blog posts, click here to see the Table of Contents.
Continue reading Playful Math Carnival 144: Anniversary Edition
My February playful math newsletter went out yesterday morning to all subscribers.
This month’s issue featured a couple of string art projects for Valentine’s Day, the cardioid curve, make-your-own math art, and the link between string art and calculus.
If you didn’t see it, check your Updates or Promotions tab (in Gmail) or your Spam folder. And to make sure you get all the future newsletters, add denise (dot) gaskins (at) tabletopacademypress (dotcom) to your contacts or address book.
Not a subscriber? Don’t miss next month’s playful math activities! Click the link below to sign up today, and we’ll send you our free math and writing booklets, too.
As a Bonus: You’ll receive my 8-week email series “Playful Math for Families” and be one of the first to hear about any new books, revisions, and sales or other promotions
I always wait too long to put cards in the mail. Maybe these creative beauties will inspire me to get started right away?
CREDITS: Reindeer photo (top) by Norman Tsui via Unsplash.com.
Would you like to add some no-preparation-required fun to your math lessons this month?
Check out these creative mathematical Advent calendars, each featuring one puzzle or activity per day for December 1–24.
Some of the calendars may show a previous year’s date. (This is 2020 after all!) But the puzzles are evergreen — you can enjoy them anytime.
For more Advent-math links, visit Colleen Young’s Mathematical Advent Calendars post. And don’t miss my massive blog post Holiday Math Puzzles and Activities for Christmas, Winter Break.
Since my publishing house opened its online store last month, I’ve been busy stocking the shelves with printable math activities for all ages.
It’s a fun collection of low- or no-prep ideas for playing math with your kids.
And it’s still growing. I’m pouring through old notes of my favorite projects from years of playing math with the kids in our math clubs and homeschool co-op enrichment classes, looking for ideas.
We’ve kept our prices as low as possible to fit struggling family budgets — less than a cup of coffee at my favorite cafe, back when we could still go out for a sweet, creamy cuppa.
Just go to our online store and click the “Printable Activity Guides” button to check out all the mathy fun.
Someday, I hope to combine these books into a creative math “uncurriculum” for homeschoolers. Stay tuned to this blog for more news about that. Eventually…
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 