Math Teachers at Play (MTaP) Blog Carnival #80
Welcome to the 80th Edition of the Math Teachers at Play (MTaP) blog carnival.
Before we dive into some math posts from around the web, let’s see what is special about the number eighty.
80 is…
…how long it took Phileas Fogg to travel around the world in Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days.
…4 scores (What’s Special About This Number?)
…commonly used in the “80:20 rule,” which originated from Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist. He discovered a common phenomenon: about 80% of the wealth in most countries was controlled by a consistent minority — about 20% of the people. (What’s Special About This Number?)
…spring begins on March 21st, the 80th day of the year. (What’s Special About This Number?)
Now on to the math posts…
Counting & Understanding Numbers
Patricia of Bookish Ways in Math and Science shares why she believes the 0-99 chart is a better tool than the 100 board and shares a FREE downloadable 0-99 chart. After reading her article, I agree that the 0-99 chart is a better tool.
High Five has a list of fun activities to help students with counting and basic addition. These look fun and easy to implement.
Multiplication
Christy from Thriving Stem shares a seasonal multiplication activity with leaves that also assists students with estimation skills.
Mrs. Patton’s Patch shares a fun spiral multiplication game played with playing cards. I’m always looking for a new way to play with numbers and playing cards are a wonderful way to play.
Our favorite skip counting songs are found on the Math-U-See Skip Counting CD. The songs are catchy and the kids will enjoy singing them.
Here’s a fun math catcher activity with step-by-step directions I shared in October for practicing math facts.
Geometry
Mrs. E from Mrs. E Teaches Math shares a fun activity called The Flip Family to help students learn and practice graphing, coordinate pairs, and similarity. I look forward to trying this activity with my students. If you use Life of Fred, your students may find this especially fun as the character reminds me of Fred.
Another fun way of practicing graphing and coordinate pairs is to play battleship. You can play the traditional board game or take the game anywhere (perfect for the upcoming holiday trips!) with this Battleship Wars Tablet from Miller Pads and Paper.
In time for the Christmas season, Fun-A-Day shares a geoboard tree activity. What a great way to incorporate math and Christmas!
If you are looking for a visual and hands-on way to help students learn about 3D shapes, this site has EVERY 3D shape imaginable as a PDF so your kids can print, cut, fold and glue! It even lists the number of faces, edges, and vertices.
Teaching Math
Denise of Let’s Play Math shares part of a series on how to meet grade-level goals by playing with math concepts: “Don’t think of the standards as a ‘to do’ list, but as your guide to an adventure of exploration. The key to learning math is to see it the mathematician’s way, as a game of playing with ideas.”
Jo of Resource Aholic shares five math teaching ideas including flying numbers, a cool video about triangles, imbalance problems, Desmos Water Line Activity, and a recommendation of three apps.
William Wu of Mathtuition88 shares a one page synopsis of Integration by Substitution.
Stephen of CavMaths provides a look at the Sutton Trust report “What makes great teaching” and how it relates to the maths classroom.
Closing Thought
I’ll leave you with an interesting video that meshes art and math.
So here is “Math and Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night'”
If you enjoyed this blog carnival, you can view past Math Teachers at Play blog carnivals and submit posts for future editions. You might also be interested in the Carnival of Mathematics.