It’s high time I got back on track with my Alexandria Jones posts, so I’ve been working hard on a short introduction to probability, to go along with The Birthday Surprise. Or, more honestly, I’ve been procrastinating on a short intro … well, anyway, here’s a little of what I’ve been reading around the interwebs lately.
Continue reading A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That…
It took 4+ years of practice and one solid hour of sweating — which included punching and kicking his dad as hard as he could (holding the karate pad is no easy job!) and the breaking of two boards — but it was worth it.
Last night, Chickenfoot received his black belt, being presented in the photo by his instructor, Sir John.
Congatulations, son!
[Disclaimer: I gave in to blogger’s poetic license for a catchy title. To tell the truth, I am sure Chickenfoot wouldn’t consider himself a math geek at all. Math is far from being his favorite subject, even though he is good at it.]
Even the child in question agrees with that. Chickenfoot is suffering from Peter Pan syndrome: “I don’t want to grow up!” This week, someone asked him, “You’re 17, aren’t you?” Not yet, but 13 has passed into memory…
I got tricky with the hidden present this time. The outside of the envelope changed insignificantly. It read:
I’m your last present.
Can you find me?
I’m hiding some place
That you cannot see…
But the real departure from normal came with the poetry inside. The poem was a success, in that he laughed at all the appropriate spots, but the hiding place turned out to be a little too good. Can you find the two clues in all this mess?
Blame it on MathNotations and his Corny Math Jokes (which actually included one I hadn’t heard before) — or maybe I have been reading too many of Chickenfoot’s strange tales — but anyway, I’m in a mood for humor.
So here are a couple of old favorites:
- The Frivolous Theorem of Arithmetic
Almost all natural numbers are very, very, very large.- The First Strong Law of Small Numbers
There are not enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them.
Hat tip: These had gotten lost in the dustbunnies of my memory until I saw the Frivolous Theorem mentioned recently at Art of Problem Solving.
Edited to add: Scott at Grey Matters recently updated his Mathematical Humor post, which may be where I had originally read these. He links to several more great MathWorld jokes, including the ever-tasty Pizza Theorem.
Not to be outdone by her older brother, Princess Kitten insisted on starting a blog of her own:
I have given them a section of my blogroll. If you are interested, they would both love to have you drop by and read their stories. Chickenfoot is writing in the “fractured fairytale” vein, at least for now, while Kitten’s tales tend toward animal adventures.
This teacher’s opinion: It certainly beats those dreaded “Pretend you’re a pencil” essays!
My ds has opened his own blog, and he has some funny stories to tell. The first one is now posted at:
…with more to follow soon. I hope you enjoy them!
And if any of you homeschooling families have students with blogs, I am sure he would enjoy hearing from them. He could use some links for his blogroll.
[Rescued from my old blog.]
Well, I hadn’t planned on spending my day this way. One of the great things about homeschooling is that we can spend time following rabbit trails…
While browsing the Carnival of Homeschooling, I found a link to Farm School blog’s article Fib Foolery, which sent me to Gotta Book for his articles The Fib and More Fibbery (read the comments on both threads, but be warned that some are crude) and several other posts, all of which set me off on a morning of poetic fun. I know what I’m going to share at our Tuesday Teatime and Poetry Reading this afternoon.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 