More mathematical insight from James Tanton…
Sept-Oct 2010 Math Calendars
As I was preparing for Wednesday’s Homeschool Math Club Games & Activities meeting, I remembered my old math calendars and thought, that would be a fun activity to offer. So I pulled up the files and discovered that the days of the week matched perfectly. What a cool coincidence!
So in case you missed the math calendars last year, or in case it’s been long enough that your children have forgotten, here are the “new” versions:
Addendum
Umm Ahmad created an easier version for young students:
Math Teachers at Play #24
[Photo by internets_dairy.]
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. Let’s start the mathematical fun with an arithmetic card game in honor of our 24th edition and a few number puzzles:
Math Teachers at Play #20
[Photo by shonk.]
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.
Let’s start the mathematical fun with a couple of puzzles in honor of our 20th edition: First, the shape to our right is an icosahedron, one of the Platonic solids. Each face is an equilateral triangle — can you count them? For more fun, make your own model.
Algebra: A Problem in Translation
[Photo by *Irish.]
In my post Elementary Problem Solving: The Tools, I introduced word algebra as a way to help students think their way through a story problem. In the next two posts, I showed how the tool worked with simple word problems.
Now, before I move on to focus exclusively on bar diagrams, I would like to show how word algebra can help a student solve a typical first-year algebra puzzle.
A homeschooling friend who avoided algebra in high school, trying to help her son cope with a subject she never understood, posted: “Help! Our answer is different from the book’s.” Here is the homework problem:
Josh earned $72 less than his sister who earned $93 more than her mom. If they earned a total of $504, how much did Josh earn?
Math Teachers at Play #8
[Photo by jaaron.]
Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — which is not just for math teachers! We accept entries from anyone who enjoys playing around with math, as long as the topic is relevant to students or teachers of preK-12th grade mathematics.
Some articles were submitted by their authors, other were drawn from the back-log in my blog reader, and I’ve spiced it all up with a few math jokes courtesy of the Mathematical humor collection of Andrej and Elena Cherkaev.
Let the mathematical fun begin…
Kids’ Project: More Math Calendars?
[Photo by Kuzeytac.]
Several people enjoyed the April calendar and asked if there would be a May version. Unfortunately, my homeschool co-op classes are out until next fall, so I don’t have enough kids to make up problems for me. But if your children would like to send in some puzzles, I will be glad to put another calendar together. If we get enough participation, we could have calendars every month for the rest of the year!
Puzzle: Factoring Trinomials
My high school class ended the year with a review of multiplying and factoring simple polynomials. We played this matching game, and then I gave them a puzzle worksheet. I liked this idea, but I didn’t like the decoded answer. In my opinion, puzzles should give the student a “reward” for solving them — maybe a joke or riddle or something — but that answer seemed almost like nagging.
So I changed things around to make my own version:
Math Teachers at Play #5
[Photo by Alex Kehr.]
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. Let the mathematical fun begin…
Math Game: Logarithm War
[Graph created at Draw Function Graphs.]
Kate at f(t) took my popular Math War game to a new level by making a set of Logarithm War cards. Cool! Download a deck for yourself:
Update
Logs and Trig War—Jim Pai extended Kate’s logarithm war to include trig functions. Double the cards, double the fun! Download from Jim’s blog: War: what is it good for?
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 