My niece, Heather presented me with a math equation recently, which she had found and thought was rather fun.
Here it is:
[12 + 144 + 20 + (3 x square root of 4)] / 7 + 5 x 11 = 9 squared + 0.
It does equate - both sides are 81.
You probably know that 12 is a dozen; But here are a couple of others: 144 is a gross; 20 is a score.
And so, if we put math into verse, we get:
A dozen, a gross and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
is nine squared and not a bit more!
Math in Limerick form. Thank you Heather!
Showing posts with label The Joy of Math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Joy of Math. Show all posts
Monday, 27 November 2017
Wednesday, 25 October 2017
The Joy of Discovery
Recently we had relatives visiting from Germany. A family of four, with a daughter 4 1/2 (not 4, I was told!) years old. While mother and father were busy with the baby, I had the opportunity to play with the 4 1/2 year old. I looked through my stack of games for something suitable for her age, preferably something that didn't involve a lot of struggling between English and German. After a game of Memory (which youngsters are far too good at!) I pulled out Bee Lines - a math related game that uses addition and subtraction of numbers up to 10.
The idea is to be the first to create a continuous line from one side of the board to the other, or from top to bottom, with your bees (red or blue background). To do so, on your turn you spin two spinners, each with the numbers 1 through 10 on them. If you spin a 5 and a 9, you can place a bee on a 4 (9 minus 5) or a 14 (9 plus 5) to help build your line.
That's the game. Our visitor was happy to work at adding and subtracting the necessary numbers, but after a few turns, we decided to try a number line instead of counting on our fingers. We drew a nice large number line, and she would start with the bigger number (she could figure that out) and count, first up, and then down, from there to get to the two numbers she could choose from to place her bee on.
So when she spun a 10 and a 5, the excitement, the sheer joy and the laughter when she counted up to 15, then down to 5, and realized that her spin (the 5) was the same as her answer was incredible! And not only the 5, but the 15 ended in the same number! Then when she spun an 8 and a 4, and one of her answers was 4. More joy and laughter. And when 8 and 5 gave her 13 and 3. Wow! Her joy of discovery was a joy to watch. Her excitement and laughter were infectious.
A young girl was discovering math for herself and loving it. Who says math is hard? Math is fun!
By the way, Bee Lines is a great math game to play with young people. We bought it to play with our kids many years ago. I now use it with my young tutoring students when we need a break from pencil and paper.
The idea is to be the first to create a continuous line from one side of the board to the other, or from top to bottom, with your bees (red or blue background). To do so, on your turn you spin two spinners, each with the numbers 1 through 10 on them. If you spin a 5 and a 9, you can place a bee on a 4 (9 minus 5) or a 14 (9 plus 5) to help build your line.That's the game. Our visitor was happy to work at adding and subtracting the necessary numbers, but after a few turns, we decided to try a number line instead of counting on our fingers. We drew a nice large number line, and she would start with the bigger number (she could figure that out) and count, first up, and then down, from there to get to the two numbers she could choose from to place her bee on.
So when she spun a 10 and a 5, the excitement, the sheer joy and the laughter when she counted up to 15, then down to 5, and realized that her spin (the 5) was the same as her answer was incredible! And not only the 5, but the 15 ended in the same number! Then when she spun an 8 and a 4, and one of her answers was 4. More joy and laughter. And when 8 and 5 gave her 13 and 3. Wow! Her joy of discovery was a joy to watch. Her excitement and laughter were infectious.
A young girl was discovering math for herself and loving it. Who says math is hard? Math is fun!
By the way, Bee Lines is a great math game to play with young people. We bought it to play with our kids many years ago. I now use it with my young tutoring students when we need a break from pencil and paper.
Saturday, 22 April 2017
Exploring Transformations - With the Help of Blokus
In working with a grade 5 student, for whom the current topic in class is transformations, we pulled out our game of Blokus to do some exploring and practicing.
Transformations being studied included translations (left, right, up, down), rotations (spinning the image about a fixed point) and reflections (mirror images). Blokus was a great way to look at reflections and rotations, the more difficult of the three transformations to grasp.
For the reflections, we first chose one piece and then placed the same piece of each of the four colours, one in each of the four corners, all being reflections of each other. We then took turns placing another piece on the board, after which the student gets to place the three like-shaped pieces of different colours in the appropriate place to match the left-right (horizontal) and up-down (vertical) reflections. Eventually we had all the pieces in place, every piece being reflected appropriately.
Transformations being studied included translations (left, right, up, down), rotations (spinning the image about a fixed point) and reflections (mirror images). Blokus was a great way to look at reflections and rotations, the more difficult of the three transformations to grasp.
For the reflections, we first chose one piece and then placed the same piece of each of the four colours, one in each of the four corners, all being reflections of each other. We then took turns placing another piece on the board, after which the student gets to place the three like-shaped pieces of different colours in the appropriate place to match the left-right (horizontal) and up-down (vertical) reflections. Eventually we had all the pieces in place, every piece being reflected appropriately.
Our second project was to do a similar thing, but this time, our transformation was a 90 degree rotation. For this, we started at the centre of the board, again choosing one piece but this time rotating it by 90 degrees for each of its like-shaped pieces of different colours. We placed the pieces so as to create a spiral when we were done.
Challenging at times, but it definitely got easier as we progressed and got the hang of it. Good fun, good learning, picturesque result!
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