7/25 live event with Math Kangaroo and 8/12 Math Makers @ Dix Park – July 2026 News

Thank you for checking out what’s new in the Math Maker Neighborhood! In this newsletter, you’ll see:

1. Future Book Club: A live online event on July 25 hosted by Math Kangaroo USA with Kara Shane Colley, the author of My Hundred Friends
2. Math Maker activity: Do you use pretend-play, stories, or improv to do math at home or with students?
3. Research Triangle, NC live math: August 12 indoor math playspace at Dix Park, Raleigh

Future Book Club news

Join us for a live and interactive online event for students in grades 3-5 this Saturday, July 25, at 1 p.m. EDT. Register to receive your link. (The event won’t be recorded.)

Meet Kara Shane Colley, the author of My Hundred Friends (Natural Math), a book about a cozy world where the mathematics of factors and multiples means friendship. Do you like comics, puzzles, and mathematical art? Then bring your pencil box and your imagination, and solve Math Kangaroo problems with the book’s creative, powerful techniques honed by math and engineering pros.

Math Kangaroo USA is dedicated to helping students love mathematics. It runs an annual international mathematics competition that inspires tens of thousands of students, and celebrates everyone who comes and gives it a try. The problems focus on critical thinking, logical reasoning, and creative problem-solving skills.

Math Maker Neighborhood

There are many lists of mathematical techniques floating around, with ideas like “Make your problem smaller” or “Work on your proof backwards, starting from the end.” What if we made a list like this with techniques inspired by storytelling? Do you immerse your group in history or cultural traditions while teaching math? Do you invite your students to imagine being two-dimensional characters? Do you use math fantasy books, cartoons, pretend-play, or improv? Please drop us an anecdote about your experience! We started our growing list of techniques at an improv workshop at Math Camp for Teachers (North Carolina) and a storytelling workshop at the Math Circles Institute (Indiana) this summer.

Math Circles Institute 2026: math makers taking over the world.

Research Triangle, NC events

On August 12, 2026 from 10 a.m to noon, join us in a beautiful (and air-conditioned!) pop-up math playspace at Dix Park chapel, Raleigh for puzzles, games, and art activities for ages 5 to 125 in the Math Maker Neighborhood series. The theme for August is Dividing and Uniting.

Can you split the map, guiding visitors to the closest ice cream stand in the park? Can a song win a popularity contest if fewer than half of the listeners prefer it? Why do both spies and artists love prime numbers? Come and play with the mathematics of dividing, fairly or otherwise. Featuring a take-home math kit for ages five and up inspired by game theory, operations research, and computer science.

Yes, we will play with gerrymandering, as you might have guessed – but we’ll only vote for broccoli vs. ice cream. We’ll also bring back the crowd favorites from our past themes, such as the giant Soma cube and the fluffy cord tangle puzzles.

Optional RSVP here.

If you’d like to volunteer, have a question, or want to talk about children learning mathematics, contact Natural Math.