Glog yourself

Glogster is the best multimedia tool & expression space for students and educators.  Glogging is the new online phenomenon where people can be innovative and creative while creating an interactive poster. 

On glogster you can share what you think about other posters, make your own glogs, add images to make your glog unique, incorporate music or add your favorite mp3's, or add video or make your own and upload them straight to glogster.

Glogster has tons of cool features: get in touch with new friends, promote your glogs on the Internet, and browse other Glogs.  You can comment and rate Glogs, get G points, attract fans, and get inspired by others designs.  Featured below is a glog I created over classroom rules:



Here is the link for the website: http://www.glogster.com/ and Happy Teaching!!

Animoto

Animoto is a great site for making fun and exciting videos for students watch.  Many people have powerpoints and I fall asleep during powerpoints, so the two top things are Prezi and Animoto.  Animoto is great small 30 seconds or if you want to buy an upgrade for 5$ a month you can.  In Animoto you are turning your photos, music, and video clips in to works of art and you can easily upload to youtube or embed directly to a blog or website (see below).

 Animoto allows easy sharing, unique styles, a big music library, and high-definition videos.  Need I say more get started here!  I created one about Fibonacci and some small stuff about his background the video is 37 seconds and I am beginning to use this tool as an educator all the time.  It is great for small breaks for the students and keeps them learning about mathematics.




Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Number Fix

Numberfix is a great site for teachers.  There are lesson ideas that are creative that incorporate writing and writing skills in to the math classroom.  On the resource page, you will find a growing collection of thoughtful and creative ways to have students ponder information and demonstrate new found knowledge. Teachers can insert these lessons at any time during the curriculum, either as review or as an introduction to new material.

 http://writingfix.com/WAC/numberfix.htm

On the page you will find:  Holly's Model Math Lessons, Constructed Responses,  The 6 Traits and Math, Ideas for Secondary Classrooms, Lessons for In service, and an Annual Digital math Problem Contest. 

Two of the great ideas on the website is: A great way to write weekly in your math class about problem-solving, to celebrate best writing efforts once a month, then to celebrate best work for the entire year by creating a "museum" of creatively published best problems and their solutions. The second great idea is:   A R.A.F.T. Writing Prompt challenges students to apply learned math skills to real world situations. When you create a R.A.F.T. prompt for your students, you are assigning students a Role in whose voice they will write, and Audience they will be preparing the piece of writing for, a Format for the writing, and a Topic to write about.

As Easy As Pi

Searching for something to get kids excited about math? Scrambling for a great resource to share with your colleagues or use in the library?  

Illustrated books can help dispel the myth that math is dull, unimaginative, and inaccessible. They can spark children's mathematical imaginations in ways that textbooks and workbooks often don't. Picture books can also help students who love to read—but think math isn't their thing—experience the wonder of math in the same way they already enjoy the wonder of books.


If you're an educator who doesn't enjoy or feel comfortable teaching math, using picture books can build on your existing strengths in teaching reading and language arts, and help bolster your confidence and enthusiasm for teaching math.

Burns, Marilyn. Spaghetti and Meatballs for All! Scholastic, 1997. Gr 4–6: AREA AND PERIMETER

Emberley, Ed. The Wing on a Flea. Little, Brown, 2001. K–Gr 2: GEOMETRY

Goldstone, Bruce. Ten Friends. Holt, 2001. Gr 1–2: COMBINATIONS of 10

Lionni, Leo. Inch by Inch. HarperTrophy, 1995. K–Gr 3: MEASUREMENT

Geringer, Laura. A Three Hat Day. HarperCollins, 1985. Gr 1–6: permutations

 If you have continued to read this far, thank you, and this is your chance for a free prize.  I am giving away As Easy As Pi by James Buchan.  This book goes through the countless number of ways we use numbers everday.  

So be the first to comment on this blog post with your name and address and the book will be shipped (free of charge) to your house or office.

Wall Wisher

When I want students to communicate, I use Wall Wisher.  Wall Wisher allows the teacher the opportunity to post questions and have multiple students answer questions.  I sometimes use this as homework and use it in the classroom every now and then.

I published a wall called Math Techniques and Strategies:  http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/mathexamples you can post or answer a question by double clicking anywhere on the background screen.  When you set up your wall you can include images, text, and post questions.  On this site you can set the wall to be public where anyone can get access to the wall or you can make walls private.



My prompt for you is how can you incorporate this in the math classroom?

Math Angst

I'm wondering how anyone in the world can hate math.  But those people are not hard to find.  I tutor college students in college algebra and pre-algebra and some of those students hate.... and by hate I mean hate numbers, math, formulas, everything and anything about math.  Confronted with repeated failure, math anxiety may be masked with callousness , anger, or false indifference.  There are ways you can curb this math angst and below are the featured strategies. 

1. Engage students in a working relationship.
2. Explore strengths and obstacles to learning.
3. Set them up for success.
4. Improve math vocabulary.
5. Provide tools to seek help.
6. Explore self-image.

About number 6, I am currently reading a book The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child, by John Mighton.  One of the overwhelming themes in the book is when he created (JUMP) Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies, his main focus was on self-image in mathematics and this self-image must be maintained throughout the entire lesson or you will lose students engagement.

Math Dictionary

Listed below are two different math dictionaries vocabulary to students.  Math dictionaries help students learn definitions and refer to them in their homework.  Sometimes I allow them to use their math dictionaries on quizzes, but never on tests.  

The first one: http://www.mathwords.com/ is more interactive then the second one.  It introduces topics from Algebra to Calculus. It contains math words, math terms,  math formulas, pictures, diagrams, tables, and examples to satisfy your inner math geek.  


The second is: http://users.erols.com/bram/dictionary2.html  it sorts key words and terms by alphabetical order.    It contains less pictures and is less interactive and is the bare minimum I would let a student turn in, but includes many different terms, from Algebra to Calculus.


I have a project that is similar to this, it incorporates vocabulary words and the students have to put a dictionary together and turn one in every quarter, most of the ones I want back have to be illustrated with some sort of graphic or be full of color.  Even pictures cut out of magazines will do.

Fields Medal

The Fields Medals are commonly regarded as mathematics' closest analog to the Nobel Prize (which does not exist in mathematics), and are awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union to one or more outstanding researchers. "Fields Medals" are more properly known by their official name, "International medals for outstanding discoveries in mathematics."

Here are the 4 winners of the fields medal in 2010:

• Elon Lindenstrauss
• Ngô Bao Châu
• Stanislav Smirnov
• Cédric Villani

Service Learning

Mathematics courses often have little practical application for solving problems in the real world. Service-learning helps to bridge this gap at the elementary, secondary, and higher education levels.  Service-learning in the mathematics curriculum provides a rich opportunity for students to learn while contributing to their communities.  Examples of mathematics service-learning experiences include tutoring, environmental data monitoring and analysis (statistics), building structures (geometry–slopes and angles), and designing transportation routes (discrete / combinatorial math). Some of the better examples I have seen are listed below:

• Through research, students discovered that other students and parents wanted to see more
  activities available after school. These pre-algebra students teamed up with physical
  education and AutoCAD classes to create an Ultimate Frisbee Course. Students worked with
  a local golf pro to develop the course. They measured the 9 holes, developed a formula to
  justify the value and difficulty levels of each hole (Par 3,4,5). After playing a series of
  rounds, the students determined the course’s range of difficulties 1-9 and constructed scale
  maps and scorecards.
• Due to the overcrowded nature of the parking lot, students counted the number of cars that
  are used to drive students to school and the number of students per car. They set up a chart
  of their school and asked the students what area they lived in. They created a graph of the
  number of cars per students in each area and sent a report home with students encouraging
  students and parents to carpool when driving students to school.
• After determining that the baseball field was in disrepair, geometry students made specific
  recommendations on ways to improve the condition of the field, including erosion control on
  a sloping hill.
• Students conducted a study of the traffic speeds in their downtown area. Using a speed gun
  provided by the police department, students analyzed the speeding patterns of motor vehicles.
  As a result, they asked selectmen for a traffic light to deter speeding. Their proposal was
  accepted and a traffic light was put in.
• Geometry students were asked by 4
  school. The map was needed so the 4
  the community. The high school students used the geometry and measurement concepts that
  they learned in class to develop an accurate map, one that indicated where each of the 4
  th graders to map a nature trail behind the elementaryth graders could make a brochure of the nature trail forthgrade adopted trees was located.

Graphic Novels for Math

Graphic Novels entice students to read because they think of them in the same way they think of video games.  Visuals enable students to comprehend and infer from the text.  Some graphic novels encourage students to think critically about contemporary issues.  Graphic novels help foster visual literacy, accommodate different learning styles, and introduce literature otherwise avoided. 

The new graphic novel that is taking math by storm is Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou.  Logicomix is a graphic novel focusing on the story of Bertrand Russell, the English mathematician and philosopher, and the question begins at the beginning of the 20th century to discover a logically rigorus foundation for mathemtaics.  This quest had a surprising outcome: in one sense, it was a failure; in another sense, it led directly to the development of computers! If you want to know what I mean… you’ll have to read the book.  Logicomix certainly dispels the myth that mathematicians are dull.  I particularly recommend it to middle and high school teachers for lending to students!

 A link is posted here: Logicomix

Math Read Alouds

Read alouds are a great way to get students interested in mathematics.  Sometimes even elementary level books are the best for middle or high school students who need a little break from drama, schoolwork, or just math.  Listed below are a few good read aloud books, in which some call "living math".  

Zero

A Place for Zero - Angeline Sparagna Lopresti

Zero is not Nothing - Mindel and Harry Sitomer

Large Numbers, Exponents, Infinity

512 Ants on Sullivan Street - Carol A. Losi (doubling exponentially)

Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar - Masaichiro Anno (size, perspective, counting, nesting, factorials)

Arm in Arm - Remy Charlip (paradox, infinite loops)

Is the Blue Whale the Biggest Thing Ever? - Robert Wells (why we have lg. numbers)

Hooray for Me - Remy Charlip (relationship, nesting)

How Much is a Million? - Frank Schwartz

Infinity, What Is It? - Marnie Luce

King's Chessboard - David Birch (doubling exponentially)

Math Curse - Jon Scieszka

Millions of Cats - Wanda Gag

On Beyond a Million - David Schwartz (lg. numbers, exponents)

One Grain of Rice - Demi (doubling exponentially)

Probability/Graphing
A Very Improbably Story - Edward  Einhorn (probability)

Anno's Magic Seeds - Masaichiro Anno

Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar - Masaichiro Anno

Best Vacation Ever - Stuart Murphy (collecting data)

Do You Wanna Bet? - Jean Cushman

Fractals, Googols and Other Mathematical Tales - Theoni Pappas

Graph Games - Frederique and Papy

Great Graph Contest - Loreen Leedy (graphs)

Lemonade for Sale - Stuart Murphy (bar graphs)

Less Than Zero - Stuart Murphy (graphing, negative numbers)

Number Devil - Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Odds & Chances for Kids -Manfred Riedel (probability, history, stories. Much is in storytelling form)

Pigs at Odds - Amy Axelrod

Pigs on the Ball - Amy Axelrod

Probably Penny - Loreen Leedy (probability)

Probably Pistachio - Stuart Murphy (probability)

Same Old Horse - Stuart Murphy (predictions)

Socrates and the Three Little Pigs - Tuyosi Mori

Sundae Scoop - Stuart Murphy (combinations)

Tiger Math - Ann Whitehead Nagda (graphing)

Geometry

3D, 2D, 1D - David Adler

A Cloak for the Dreamer - Aileen Friedman

Ancient Mystery of Tangrams - Quarto Children's Books

Angles are Easy as Pie - Robert Froman

Area - Jane Jonas Srivastava

Bigger, Better, Best - Stuart Murphy (area)

Boy With Square Eyes - Juliet Snape

Captain Invincible and the Space Ships - Stuart Murphy (3d shapes)

Circles - Mindel and Harry Sitomer

Circles and Curves - Arthur Razell

Eight Hands Round - Ann Whitford Paul (quilt design)

Ellipse - Mannis Charosh

Goat in the Rug - Charles Blood (Navajo weaving story)

Grandfather Tang's Story - Ann Tompert

Greedy Triangle - Marilyn Burns

Hamster Champs - Stuart Murphy (angles)

Harlequin - Remy Charlip

House for Birdie - Stuart Murphy (understanding capacity)

In Shadowland - Masaichiro Anno

Let's Fly a Kite - Stuart Murphy (symmetry)

Lines, Segments, Polygon - Mindel

Mighty Maddie - Stuart Murphy (comparing weights)

Mother, Mother, I Feel Sick... - Remy Charlip

Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry - Cindy Neuschwander

My Full Moon is Square - Elinor Pinczes (intro to square numbers)

Opt, An Illusionary Tale - Arline Baum (geometry, proportions, measurement)

Paper Crane - Molly Bang (origami)

Paper John - David Small (origami)

Patchwork Quilt - Valerie Flournoy

Quilt Counting - Lesa Cline-Ransome

Racing Around - Stuart Murphy (perimeter)

Reflections - Ann Jonas (symmetry, perspective)

Rubber Bands, Baseballs and Doughnuts: A Book about Topology - Robert Froman

Shadow Geometry - Daphne Harwood Trivett

Shape of Things - Dayle Ann Dodds

Shape Up: Fun with Triangles and Other Polygons - David Adler

Silly Story of Goldilocks and the Three Squares - Grace Maccarone

Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi - Cindy Neuschwander

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table -  Cindy Newschwander (geometry shapes)

Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland - Cindy Neuschwander

Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter -  Cindy Neuschwander

Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone - Cindy Neuschwander

Spaghetti and Meatballs for All - Marilyn Burns (area, perimeter, division)

Spider Weaver - Margaret Musgrove

Squarehead - Harriet Ziefert

Straight Lines, Parallel Lines, Perpendicular Lines - Mannis Charosh

Super Sand Castle Saturday - Stuart Murphy (measuring)

Three Pigs, One Wolf and Seven Magic Shapes - Grace MacCarone

Triangle, Square, Circle - William Wegman

Village of Round and Square Houses - Ann Grifalconi

What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras? – Julie Ellis

What Is It? Spin -about book - Beau Gardner

What is Symmetry? - Mindel and Harry Sitomer

When  a Line Bends...a Shape Begins - Rhonda Gowler Greene

Wing on a Flea - Ed Emberley

Who Took the Farmer's Hat? - Joan Nodset

Other concepts/Multiple Concepts

Alice in Numberland (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Bug Dance - Stuart Murphy (directions)

Case of the Missing Zebra Stripes (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Dinosaur Deals - Stuart Murphy (equivalent values)

Fortunately - Remy Charlip (opposites, prediction)

From Head to Toe: Body Math (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Greatest Gymnast of All - Stuart Murphy (opposites)

House That Math Built: House Math (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Just Enough Carrots - Stuart Murphy (comparing quantities)

Look Both Ways, City Math (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Missing Math, A Number Mystery - Loreen Leedy (why we need numbers)

Mystery of the Sunken Treasure: Sea Math (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Pigs in the Corner - Amy Axelrod (directions)

Pterodactyl Tunnel: Amusement Park Math (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Right in Your Own Backyard: Nature Math (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Rosie's Walk - Pat Hutchins (spatial relationships)

Search For the Mystery Planet: Space Math (I Love Math) - Time Life Books

Seven Chinese Brothers - Margaret Mahy (cause/effect, relationship chain)

Some Things Go Together - Charlotte Zolotow (relationships, matching)

Statistics - Jane Srivastava (excellent intro to statistics for younger)

Venn Diagrams - Robert Froman

Prizes coming soon!!

I update the blog daily with information for teachers and for everyone who loves math.  From now on, I will be giving away prizes randomly and the first one to comment on the post with their name and address will recieve the prize.  The first person to comment will win the prize.  So follow the page and check everyday to see if you are the first to win the prize.

Thematic Units

At this website, http://www.mrperezonlinemathtutor.com/ you can find an extensive array of Math power point lessons for geometry, algebra, and basic math taught in high school, middle school and upper grades.  These lessons simplify planning for the teacher since the power point is ready to go and have been fully tested in the classroom.

The math index has thousands of ready to use power points over many different topic areas, from: cone, congruent triangles, hyperbola, and geometric series.  This website allows any teacher to have a power point over the topic in a matter of seconds if you are running late.  The second thing I wanted to show you today is: http://www.khanacademy.org/ which boasts that they have delivered over 77 million lessons.  Their library has over 2,400 educational videos and is the hot topic of debate over its flipped classroom debate.  You can find videos of Khan Academy all over YouTube and ranging from how electoral colleges work, heart disease, and systems of equations. 

Fantasy Sports

I was at home the other day, watching Outside the Lines, and I saw an episode that made me think.  How can you incorporate sports in the math classroom?  Fantasy sports is a way in Outside the Lines that incorporates perfectly in to algebra.  Fantasy sports are helping students succeed. Teachers report that grades, enthusiasm, and test scores are all higher.  This style of algebra addresses NCTM Standards, alters the negative perception many students have toward math, and makes connections between math at school and math in the real world; research indicates learning is facilitated when such connections are made.  A link to the website is listed here.  The video of the Outside the Lines show is listed below.



For assignments I assign at home webquests, a few examples of sport webquests that incorporate math are linked here.

Math Experiments

Most people think science is more fun than math, because science does all these cool experiments and you get to play and manipulate cool things.  What if I told you math could be the same way.  Everyday in mathematics everyone is learning something new and you are using your brain to manipulate formulas and numbers to the way you want them.  But, there are also websites and other manipulative you can have in the classroom that is more hands-on learning.  One of my favorite new websites is http://www.exploratorium.edu/explore/ where there are hands-on activities, articles, videos, and more. The website features different subjects each week, a few of the categories this week is  Geometry Playground, Walk a Math Trail, and my favorite Pattern of Cracks.

Other websites that I have found that incorporate math experiments is Math Experiments, Activity Center, and 200 Free Math Experiments.  All of these websites include lessons include full experiments in mathematics and they will keep the kids interested and wanting to come back tomorrow (if block schedule) or sooner (if not).

Using Calculators

For a teacher a calculator can be the worst thing in the classroom, in other classes the calculator can be a helpful tool for simplifying problems, graphing strange equations, and overall confusion in math.  Most students don't know their way around a normal calculator that adds/subtracts/multiplies/divides let alone a graphing calculator that can do multiple functions.  Here is a website that shows you how to use the graphing calculator, especially the TI 83/84.  http://mathbits.com/mathbits/tisection/openpage.htm this website covers all the math areas from algebra, calculus, trigonometry, geometry, and statistics.  There is also a teacher page, a robot page, and problem/solving techniques on your graphing calculator. 

Students have fun using the calculators and you show trust in students when you allow them to use calculators in the class.  In an article: The Role of Calculators in Math Education by Heidi Pomerantz she states in her research, "When students work with graphing calculators, they have the potential to work much more intelligently than they could if they were not using this valuable resource."

Graphing calculators help students visualize problems and discover mathematical theorems on their own. 

Data Guide Quick Charts

Data guide quick charts are a great thing to have around the class, they allow students to look up any important formula in almost any subject area.  A website that I found that allows free quick charts is: http://www.cheat-sheets.org/ they have many different quick charts ranging from Algebra to Calculus.  All quick charts fit on one sheet of paper, normally front and back.  These Data Guides is a great way for students to look for a formula without searching the entire book. 

This is one of the fancy algebra data guide quick charts from a teacher store.  This one covers set theory to complex numbers.  There are also many more including ones from different subject areas and levels, including college and graduate level classes. 

Math books

You might think this is about textbooks, well its not! When teachers get home from school the last thing they want to look at is the textbook.  Featued below is a couple of my favorite math books to read (for fun).  Some of them offer interesting backgrounds in numbers, theory, and why we do what we do.  Some of these I have read, some are now on my list to read, and some look really good.

1. The Number Devil, by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.  The book is about a thrilling exploration. In twelve dreams, Robert, a boy who hates math.  This is currently on the top of my list to read.
2. Innumeracy, by John Allen Paulos.  Why do well-educated people understand so little about mathematics? And what are the costs of our innumeracy?  I haven't read this yet, but have seen it many times at the library.
3. A History of Pi, by Petr Beckmann.  I have read this book and have thoroughly been engaged by the mathematical side of pi.  It is a small part of the history of mathematics and the mirror of the history of man.
4. The Knot Book, by Colin C. Adams.  The first book to make cutting-edge research in knot theory accessible to an audience.  I have read this book and have even posed some of the questions to students in an Algebra class.
5. The Mathematical Tourist, by Ivars Peterson.  I just finished this book about a week ago, and offers insight on modern mathematics and its uses in todays society.
6. Perfect Figures, by Bunny Crumpacker.  Intoxicating trip through the history, poetry, and the suprising secret meanings of numbers.  (There are plenty of books about this topic, this is the best I have ran across).
7. The Lady Tasting Tea, by David Salsburg.  An insightful, revealing history of the magical mathematics that transformed our world.
8. The Parrot's Theorem, by Denis Guedj.

These are just a few of the books that I have found and some of the more interesting ones at that.  But local college libraries have great books on mathematics and even some public libraries have books that you can't find at the college libraries.

SMARTboard

SMARTboards are almost in every classroom across the nation, nowadays.  I remember the days of the transperncies on the overhead projectors copying down notes.  Now students have an interactive tool always at their finger tips.  Smartboard are just not for the teachers use,  but more of my students use the smartboard in my class more than I do.  Smartboard and their exchange program allow teachers to pull lessons, response questions, manipulatives, activity packs, images, videos, and pdf's.  In fact earlier this week they had over 12,000 items just in the mathematics section alone.  You can also find lessons by standards you have coming up.  An example of a lesson given on a smartboard is featured below.  Happy Teaching!

Musical Math

Incorporating math in various subject areas are a great way to improve student achievement and career intrests.  Everyone loves music, but everyone has their favorite type of music.  A great website that integration resources, multimedia activities, and homeade instrument projects the students can make is at:

http://www.philtulga.com/resources.html.

It includes sequencing, fractions, pattern blocks, predictions, origami, subtraction, among other things.  On his website there is a link called virtual field trips, where you explore the culture, tradition, and mathematics behind cultures.

• Other meanings behind music include:  fractions, sets, intersecting sets, ratios/fractions/decimals, and roots and powers. 

A great website includes a Princeton proffessor who has come up with geometrical representations of musical instruments at: http://dmitri.tymoczko.com/

Graphing Calculators

Many math classrooms restrict calculator use when it comes to simple operations and I am one of those teachers.  But, there are great websites out there that use graphing calculators to help explore mathematics deeper in context.  In algebra it is hard to see what you are doing when it comes to mathematical operations and why distributing works, but looking at the geometry behind algebra helps students visualize the algebra they are working on.

At the website: http://education.ti.com/calculators/timath/ Texas Instruments offers many activities in different subject areas including algebra, geometry, pre-calculus, and statistics.  Texas Instruments allows you to download activities and lesson plans that cater to student success in the classroom.  They also have Math Events where they have presentations on how to use TI technology and get hands-on experience.

TI also has a student zone where they can help solve homework problems, learn more about math and science careers, and download the latest software with new enhancements.  The last thing I want to feature on here is the EXPLORATIONS where TI offers series book that incorporates mathematics and calculator use in everyday activities.

Mind Soccer

Through whole brain teaching there is a review game called "Mind Soccer" the game itself is perfect use for the mathematical classroom. Mind soccer, I keep the simple rules of the game.  Quick answers only, change of possession, by right answers you move the ball down the field, wrong answers and you change the possession and the other team answers, goals are worth points.  There are only a few changes that I make to the game to make the game run more smoothly. (featured below is a YouTube video of the game mind soccer.)

1. Cancel all the extra yelling
2. Mixed group of students
3. Higher-order questions the closer you get to the goal.

Math Robots

The following image comes from Spirit 2.0 Education from University of Nebraska at Lincoln, this website is funded by the National Science Foundation and apart of the STEM project and the University of Nebraska Omaha.  The CeenBoT seen above is apart of the website: http://www.ceen.unl.edu/TekBots/SPIRIT2/ the website is a great tool for teacher and allows classroom resources, assessments, and allows technology and mathematics to be in the same room at the same time.  Under the link mathematics, there is a Interactive Database Prototype that is being updated with more lesson plans all the time.  There is already about 100 lessons in the math database. 

This is a great website for teachers who want to incorporate more technology in the math classroom, there is a wide field for robotics in mathematics since it is just in its infancy.  Hope you check out the website, I have seen some of the lessons in action and they are great!

Mathematical Archaeology

Mathematical Archaeology can mean many things to different people.  To some it is the process of excavating mathematics which is encapsulated in political arguements, technologies, or administrative routines.  But, in this post it is going to cover "traditional" mathematics, or mathematics performed seperate from other cultures.  This is also called ethnomathematics.  (all cultures have them.)  There are great sites including a digital archive, numbers, and webquest.  The study of ethnomathematics is the study of culture and tradition relating to mathematics.  What kind of cultures celebrate math?  What cultures were highly sophisticated in mathematics and which are still developing today?

There is and always be a great and powerful history of mathematics that you can use to infuse cultures and cross barriers in your classroom.  Happy Teaching!

(Featured above is one of the oldest mathematical tools ever found, found in Africa is a counting bone, with labeled notches to count. add, and subtract numbers.)

Sign Language

Sign language is an integral part of all special education programs.  Students with special needs are placed in general education classes, especially math.  Because you don't need language to communicate math or be good at math it is easy to excel in math if deaf/ or hard of hearing.  Teachers who know sign language makes a deeper connection with students and signing vocabulary that ties in with mathematics is a good thing to know.  A link that incorporates these vocab words is listed here: Out Reach.

A link to a video is posted below going over how to add negative numbers with an ASL interpreter.

Math Vids

This day in history...

Many days have significance in our culture and math has those days, almost everyday.  You can celebrate the birth or death of someone you are learning about in math.  (How cool is that?)  There are many different websites that incorporate math dates in history here are a few.

Day Files

November 24th

Math History

and even certain blogs celebrate Math days: Pat'sBlog: On This Day in Math - May 22: “Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid poli...

Word Sorts

When starting the day, I hate to just jump in the pool of students right away.  I like to warm them up by either playing a small game or having them do a word sort of what we went over last class.  A small way to assess their knowledge of what they comprehended from last class and where I can begin teaching.  Word sorts are ways that I can have small cutouts and the student must arrange them in a way that creates a pattern and have to describe the pattern to their partners when they are finished.  It gets the students in a thinking mood and ready to take on harder math problems.

There is a great article published saying that word sorts used in the primary grade levels help boost vocabulary, reading, and overall math scores.  Word Sorts

Word Sort

Webquest

Teacher's don't do enough.... WEBQUESTS. When I was growing up I never did webquests, all we did was look up information on sites that we couldn't use, because they weren't academic. But, now! Math webquests are unbelievable with minimal teaching, students say fully engaged and webquests are designed to keep students on the pages you want them to see. (Barring the schools Internet not allowing certain sites) A great website is Teachnology where they offer great webquests and all different kinds in math related fields. Other listed webquest sites are: Math Goodies, Planet Shick, and SDSU. All offer great webquest examples and even lessons that you could teach from.

Another great website comes from the Library of Congress has background information on mathematics and incorporating math and history is another great way to show who does math and where math comes from.

Incorporating Vocabulary

Incorporating vocabulary is essential in every classroom from English to science.  Making the vocabulary fun and engaging is even more dificult, some teachers just hand out a vocabulary list and have the students memorize them. (SNORE!)  A few of my favorite ways to incorporate vocabulary into the classroom is by playing games.  I created a vocabulary cranium which includes math definitions instead of the game's words.  There is sketching the answer, acting out the answer, solving the answer, and what Cranium calls word worm.  I adapt my lesson and come up with cards and have the students play in teams and we have a little prize at the end.  (The best is acting... who can act out parallel lines?)

Other ways to incorporate vocabulary is the person at the board is blind-folded and told to draw a vocab word and the team to guess it correctly wins.  Next is tag vocabulary, I start the day with a jumbled list of vocab words on the board and when read the definition the students have to tag the appropriate word. 

Lastly is the word wall, yes almost every teacher has one in his/her classroom, but I like to keep temporary word walls outside the classroom.  I sometimes give the students sidewalk chalk and have the students write the word and the definition so they see it when they are leaving and when they are exiting the school. (Not on the walls of the school.)  I have also purchased window markers, I am wondering if the students will/won't have trouble writing on the windows in the classroom.

Math Senses

Everyone uses their senses to remember things, I love the smell of apple pie, it brings me right back to Christmas time at my grandmother's house.  This is the same for students, if you give them a sense while you teach the students and recall that sense during the test or quiz.  They have a better chance of retaining that information. 

There is another definition of math sense and that sense is intuition, the feeling you get when you pay for your bill at a restaurant and you know they did not give you enough back.  Other math sense occurs in math class when you look at an answer and say, x can never equal 5.234785627834658723, thats absurd.  Most people follow their gut and realize yeah that was the wrong answer.

But, on a lighter subject included below is a video by Tom Lehrer:

Tom Lehrer - New Math

Math Comics

There are always comic geeks out there and most of the time they are the same as math geeks. (I am one of them!)  Comics are a great way to get artistic creations from students and learn about the math they are doing at the same time.  First, show examples of comics and comic strips that incorporate mathematics in them. 

Next, have your students write their own comics that incorporate the lesson or the previous lessons in their comic.  Everyone loves to draw and it is not about how pretty or neat they look, it is about if they have the math right. 

My class does gallery walks to show all the classes the comics they had written and sometimes I choose a prize for having the most creative or the most accurate comic strip.

Math Stories

By combining math and literacy skills, math stories can help up open the world of math to students with a wider range of learning styles.  The word problems encourage logical thinking and help students practice getting information from written text.  I often have students read the stories aloud in class and then have them solve the math problems on their own.  Poems, stories, and songs help incorporate literacy skills and have a well-rounded student.  Links are listed below:

Math Stories

Math Humor

Abstract Math

Another great website comes from readwritethink, the international reading association.  It goes over how to draw a math story and relate the concrete to symbolic.

Draw Math Story

Math Drama

Now once you read the header, you probably think math has gone and got in to some sorta trouble, well that may be true, but that's not the kind of drama I am talking about.  Incorporating drama in math is great way to get kids up and acting out math.  Some ideas brought forth are:

• Using voice elements, body language, emotion, and the role the teacher plays in the classroom.

• Body Sculpture can add some laughter to a geometry review of 2D and 3D shapes. Divide the class into groups with enough students to make the shapes that you are working on. Groups must try to be first to correctly make the shape called out by the teacher or leader

• Many of these methods can be used for rote learning in other areas such as multiplication facts or formulas in math.

Links I found that include a great deal of drama are: Wahl and Narrative.

One video that I found that incorporates Math and drama is featured below.