It turns out that the people who do well in math are those who make connections and see math as a connected subject. The people who don’t do well are people who see math as a lot of isolated methods.
— Jo Boaler
Math Connections
If you or your children struggle with math, Boaler’s non-profit YouCubed.org may help you recover your joy in learning.
[Dragon photo above by monkeywingand treasure chest by Tom Praison via flickr.]
Over the years, some of my favorite blog posts have been the Word Problems from Literature, where I make up a story problem set in the world of one of our family’s favorite books and then show how to solve it with bar model diagrams. The following was my first bar diagram post, and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide whether “one fourth was” or “one fourth were.” I’m still not sure I chose right.
I hope you enjoy this “Throw-back Thursday” blast from the Let’s Play Math! blog archives:
Cimorene spent an afternoon cleaning and organizing the dragon’s treasure. One fourth of the items she sorted was jewelry. 60% of the remainder were potions, and the rest were magic swords. If there were 48 magic swords, how many pieces of treasure did she sort in all?
[Problem set in the world of Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Modified from a story problem in Singapore Primary Math 6B. Think about how you would solve it before reading further.]
How can we teach our students to solve complex, multi-step story problems? Depending on how one counts, the above problem would take four or five steps to solve, and it is relatively easy for a Singapore math word problem. One might approach it with algebra, writing an equation like:
… or something of that sort. But this problem is for students who have not learned algebra yet. Instead, Singapore math teaches students to draw pictures (called bar models or math models or bar diagrams) that make the solution appear almost like magic. It is a trick well worth learning, no matter what math program you use …
[Click here to go read Solving Complex Story Problems.]
You can help prevent math anxiety by giving your children the mental tools they need to conquer the toughest story problems.
Read Cimorene’s story and many more in Word Problems from Literature: An Introduction to Bar Model Diagrams—now available at all your favorite online bookstores!
And there’s a Student Workbook, too.
Do you like Pinterest? I’ve enjoyed exploring the site lately, so I set up a few boards where I can pin the goodies I find. It may take awhile before I get all the old games and posts from this blog loaded up, so save the links and come back often…
As our children (and their parents!) play around with mathematical ideas and the relationships between them, we develop deep understanding that is strong enough to support future learning. Playful math links include math games, activities, and interesting lesson plans.
Making abstract math visual: Math doodles let us see and experiment with a wide range of mathematical structures — and even to feel them, if we include hands-on 3D doodles in clay or other media. Links include art projects, geometry constructions, and physical models to explore.
A variety of math teaching ideas for homeschool families or classroom teachers. Learning mathematics is more than just answer-getting: help your students make conceptual connections. These links are more “schooly” than on the other boards, and they include conceptual lessons that build your own understanding of mathematics as well as that of your students. And math notebooking resources, too.
Since early 2009, the Math Teachers at Play (MTaP) blog carnival has offered tips, tidbits, games, and activities for students and teachers of preschool through pre-college mathematics. Now published once a month, the carnival welcomes entries from parents, students, teachers, homeschoolers, and just plain folks. If you like to learn new things and play around with ideas, you are sure to find something of interest.
Inspiration for homeschooling parents and classroom teachers. This is where I’m posting my Wednesday Wisdom quotes.
And that’s the end of my Pinterest boards (so far).
What are some of your favorite Pinterest sites? Please share a link in the comments!
Last week, Kitten and I reached her textbook’s chapter on graphing linear equations, and a minor mistake with negative numbers threw her into an “I can’t do it!” funk. It’s not easy teaching a perfectionist kid.
Usually her mood improves if we switch to a slightly more advanced topic, and luckily I had saved these worksheets on my desktop, waiting for just such an opportunity. Today’s lesson:
I offered to give her a hint, but she wanted to try it totally on her own. It took her about 40 minutes to work through the first few rooms of the Lost Templo de los Dulces and explain her solutions to me. I’m sure she’ll speed up with experience.
So far, she’s enjoying it much more than the textbook lesson. It’s fascinating to me how the mere hint of fantasy adventure can change graphing equations from boring to cool. Thanks, Dan!
[Feature photo above by Artis Rams (CC BY 2.0) via flickr. Title background (right) by Dan Moyle (CC BY 2.0) via flickr]
Have you made a New Year’s resolution to spend more time with your family this year, and to get more exercise? Problem-solvers of all ages can pump up their (mental) muscles with the Annual Mathematics Year Game Extravaganza!
For many years mathematicians, scientists, engineers and others interested in mathematics have played “year games” via e-mail and in newsgroups. We don’t always know whether it is possible to write expressions for all the numbers from 1 to 100 using only the digits in the current year, but it is fun to try to see how many you can find.
Use the digits in the year 2014 to write mathematical expressions for the counting numbers 1 through 100. The goal is adjustable by age: Young children can start with looking for 1-10, or 1-25.
[Note to students and teachers: If you want to take part in the Math Forum Year Game, be warned that they do not allow repeating decimals.]
Feature video by Stuart Jeckel via youtube.
And ask questions!
Here’s one more entry for my 20+ Things to Do with a Hundred Chart post, thanks to David Radcliffe in the comments on Monday’s post:
(30) Can you mark ten squares Sudoku-style, so that no two squares share the same row or column? Add up the numbers to get your score. Then try to find a different set of ten Sudoku-style squares. What do you notice? What do you wonder?
[Suggested by David Radcliffe.]
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.
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.
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”:
Gordon Hamilton of Math Pickle recently posted these videos on how to make algebra 1 puzzles on rectangles. As I was watching, Kitten came in and looked over my shoulder. She said, “Those look like fun!”
They look like fun to me, too, and I bet your beginning algebra students will enjoy them:
![x - \left[\frac{1}{4}x + 0.6\left(\frac{3}{4} \right)x \right] = 48](https://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=x+-+%5Cleft%5B%5Cfrac%7B1%7D%7B4%7Dx+%2B+0.6%5Cleft%28%5Cfrac%7B3%7D%7B4%7D+%5Cright%29x++%5Cright%5D++%3D+48&bg=ffffff&fg=303030&s=0&c=20201002)
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 