Newsletter January 15, 2013

Posted on January 15, 2013 by

Welcome to adventurous math for the playground crowd! I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com

Book news

The book cover is ready! This is the version we will be using in the first print and ebook run. Much appreciation to Ever Salazar for many little miracles that turn mere words into real kids playing with real math.

Volunteer reviewers are hard at work giving us comments and suggestions, as we prepare the book for copy editing. At all stages, this book is a community effort!

We are actively working on two super-secret projects to support every family or math club using the book. Both will also support young math projects of our colleagues – blogs, books, puzzles, videos… The first super-secret project is a powerful question and answer tool we call “Ask Moby.” Parents and educators will have a quick and easy way to get answers from like-minded adventurous people who appreciate advanced young math. The second super-secret project is also for grown-ups. I am only going to say, for now, that it goes by the code name “The Game.”

Blogs and networks

We reviewed three books on our blog, all of them about the topic of unitizing – that is, making one unit out of several individual entities.

“Unlikely additions” invites you to think what two units you can add to make a given other unit. For example, 1+1=5 if you add wheels of a bicycle (2) and wheels of a tricycle (3).

“Clap, drum and shake it” and “Meadow count” are about gross motor mathematics. In particular, the units are formed out of large movements, then multiplied into patterns – sort of like a dance!

On our Facebook stream, people discuss their metaphors for teaching, inspired by the “square thoughts” picture Zekeria Karadag shared. Pei-Jung Lee sees herself as a humble servant to the desire of learning. Yelena McManaman paves a road, or at least adds lines to it. Think Magnet likes the quote, “”Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” What is your metaphor for teaching?

One of my eccentric hobbies is collecting creative Hundred Charts. The number system we use today is the pinnacle of thousands of years of international research and development. Hundred Charts help us notice some of the patterns that went into this incredible invention. This fresh addition to my collection comes from a young girl named Nomi. Her dad Dor Abrahamson helped Nomi develop the idea into this neat puzzle. Can you figure out how it works? Hints are below the picture.

Hint 1: think of the sum of digits.

Hint 2: think of the number of numbers with each sum.

Sharing

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