Math Teachers at Play #39

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

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.

Several of these articles were submitted by the bloggers; others were drawn from my overflowing blog reader. Don’t try to skim everything all at once, but take the time to enjoy browsing. Savor a few posts today, and then come back for another helping tomorrow or next week.

Most of the photos below are from the 2010 MAA Found Math Gallery; click each image for more details. Quotations are from Mike Cook’s Canonical List of Math Jokes.

Let the mathematical fun begin…

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #39

Math Teachers at Play #35

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
35 is a tetrahedral number

Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — which is not just for math teachers.

Do you enjoy math? I hope so! If not, browsing these links just may change your mind. Most of these posts were submitted by the bloggers themselves; others are drawn from my overflowing Google Reader. From preschool to high school, there are plenty of interesting things to learn.

Let the mathematical fun begin…

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #35

Sept-Oct 2010 Math Calendars

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

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:

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Rate Puzzle: How Fast Does She Read?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins


[Photo by Arwen Abendstern.]

If a girl and a half
can read a book and a half
in a day and a half,
then how many books can one girl read in the month of June?

Kitten reads voraciously, but she decided to skip our library’s summer reading program this year. The Border’s Double-Dog Dare Program was a lot less hassle and had a better prize: a free book! Of course, it didn’t take her all summer to finish 10 books.

How fast does Kitten read?

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Word Problems from Literature

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Photo by Passion of Bilwa.]

I’ve put the word problems from my elementary problem solving series into printable worksheets:

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Math Teachers at Play #24

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[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:

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #24

Game: Target Number (or 24)

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Photo by stevendepolo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]

Math concepts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, powers and roots, factorial, mental math, multi-step thinking
Number of players: any number
Equipment: deck of math cards, pencils and scratch paper, timer (optional)

Set Up

All players must agree on a Target Number for the game. Try to choose a number that has several factors, which means there will be a variety of ways to make it. Traditionally, I start my math club students with a target of 24.

Shuffle the deck, and deal four cards face down to each player. (For larger target numbers, such as 48 or 100, deal five or six cards to each player.) The players must leave the cards face down until everyone is ready. Set the remainder of the deck to one side.

Continue reading Game: Target Number (or 24)

Math Teachers at Play #20

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

blue icosahedron, by shonk[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.

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Algebra: A Problem in Translation

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[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?

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