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I am Moby Snoodles, and this is my newsletter. Send me your questions, comments, and stories of math adventures at moby@moebiusnoodles.com

I am still wearing my math goggles from all the scavenger hunts we led at the Raleigh Maker Faire. If you missed it, join us online and at home for the #littlehousebigmath hunt! If you joined us at the Faire, welcome, and good talking to you again! Let’s have some adventures together.

“Bored in a math class” answers surprise the author

One of the questions asked at the Maker Faire was “my child is bored in math class. What can we do about it?” Rachel, a teen helping her mom Rodi Steinig with a book about math circles, asked the same question in several forums around the web: what to do if you are bored in a math class? She says many answers surprised her, but they make a lot of sense:

• Make the best of it by actually trying to change the contents or format of learning
• Ask the teacher for challenges (it’s not a request teachers get a lot in math classes)
• Invent little games and ways of playing, especially about the math in the lesson (Vi Hart’s videos have great examples)

Rachel will share the edited version of the collection in a few weeks – you won’t even have to wait for the book. Add your thoughts to the growing collection on our forum.

Speaking of books

Here is the news from several book projects, by and for the Natural Math network.

Camp Logic by Mark Saul and Sian Zelbo is for those who help children explore the underlying structures of mathematics. It is now in the last stage of reader review, after its crowdfunding campaign collected more than six thousand dollars to cover editing, layout, and printing. Thank you for making the campaign a success! You can pre-order paperback and electronic formats with some bonuses until the book launch in the Fall.

Playing With Math, edited by Sue VanHattum, is about to start its crowdfunding campaign on June 20th. This is a crowdsourced book of stories from math circles, family mathematics, and playful classes – about fifty people contributed chapters, art, and puzzles. It has 300+ pages, the largest of Delta Stream Media book projects to date.

These books will be published under the open Creative Commons license, so everybody can check them out, remix the activities, translate, and otherwise spread the love of mathematics.

The London Mathematical Society published a review of Moebius Noodles, by one of my heroes, Alexander Zvonkin, a pioneer of early advanced mathematics. This is my favorite quote from the review, where Alexander totally gets the main hopes and dreams of our project:

“Sometimes, the authors’ enthusiasm makes them exceedingly optimistic. They say, “In general, the answer to ‘Can young children understand the concept of… ?’ is always ‘Yes!’”, and go on: “But seriously, can you teach any concept at any age?” Apparently, their answer is once again yes. This conviction, if we consider it as a purely scientific statement in the realm of developmental psychology, is certainly wrong. But such ideas should not be judged only as right or wrong. In the first place, this idea is productive. This means that it is not so much a statement as it is a challenge, an appeal to dare, to go ahead without fear and try to invent new activities, new games and circumstances which could eventually acquaint your child with the concept you have in mind.“

Since Moebius Noodles came out a year ago, the Natural Math crew has been working hard to address an aspect the review also mentions. We are now building many more bridges between art activities, free play, games, and other informal mathematics – and formulated, abstract, explicit mathematics. Without such bridges, people who are strong at formal math don’t consider informal activities “real mathematics” – and people who are weak at formal math miss the full richness of mathematical concepts implicit in the activities. These days our materials have stronger scaffolds that help everyone to find, grasp, and share all the deep math behind beautiful art and free play.

For example, this info card accompanied our weaving activity, a hit at the Maker Faire last week. The card gives math terms, whys behind the fun, and an answer to a frequently asked question: “What if my child just weaves randomly, without creating or exploring a pattern?”

Blogs and networks: approaching maths backwards

Sue Elvis at Stories of an Unschooling Family blog writes about her revelation: mathematics can be approached in “the usual” direction of curricular sequences, or backwards, sideways, and every which way. In comments, she says since she started talking about this with other parents, many people came out and said it made total sense:

“I have been surprised at how many people understood what I was trying to say in this post, despite me finding it hard to put it into words. It could be there are a lot of children who work better using a backwards approach.”

I see this trend as well. For example, a recent Y Combinator forum thread discussed graph theory topics Joel David Hamkins presented for his 7-year-old daughter’s class. I love the activities, and what Joel David named his daughter, and the kit for a little booklet on graph theory your kid can make:

Meanwhile, at the Gray Family Circus blog young kids are seen enjoying young calculus activities such as infinite series from our spring online course. Andrea Gray writes:

“I took a great class at Moebius Noodles and got a lot of ideas for hands-on math fun… Mary had the idea for the Colby Car substitution fractal.”

Is your kid like that? Is your child learning algebra before arithmetic, doing long addition left to right, skipping all over Khan academy exercises, or otherwise “approaching maths backwards”? Share your story!

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You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print.

Talk to you soon! Moby Snoodles, aka Maria Droujkova

Subscribe to Moebius Noodles newsletters
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I am Moby Snoodles, and this is my newsletter. Send me your questions, comments, and stories of math adventures at moby@moebiusnoodles.com

Math You Make, Math You See

Do you think of math as something that “you have to solve”? Or perhaps as something that “you can play with”? How about math as something that “you want to see” or even something that “you can make”?

As we are getting ready for our first ever Maker Faire, we are thinking more and more about the DIY aspect of mathematics.  Of course, there is no shortage of project ideas for DIY manipulatives that adults make and present to kids. What we’re doing with manipulatives is different:

• Usability outside of math lesson – we often hear that math, as it is frequently presented to kids, is disconnected from the real life. One way to restore the connection is to create manipulatives that can be used in many contexts, for example, art pieces, objects to include in children’s play, things that enrich storytelling.
  Covariance Monsters by Bloke School
• Child-friendly process – if you can’t make a manipulative together with the child, as part of the math exploration, then don’t make it at all.
  

Follow these two conditions, and the mathematical conversations that spark naturally, as you are making a manipulative, will lead to deep mathematical explorations. Which in turn leads to noticing more math in more places!

Camp Logic – First Chapter Unlocked, Blog Carnival Coming Up

There are just a few more days left until the end of the crowdfunding campaign for Camp Logic, the book that explores, in a playful way, logic and mathematical reasoning. Thank you, contributors!

Reaching our first crowdfunding milestone of $3000 meant that we could make the first chapter of the book available for you to review and comment on. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here’s the link to the chapter.

And now we’ve reached the second milestone with over $5000 raised. This means that in June we will hold a blog carnival at MoebiusNoodles.com It will be bursting with mathematical goodness – games, activities and mathematical art you can make with your children.

So what’s next? Reaching the $8000 milestone means we will hold a special Math Cafe with the book authors. You will be able to attend virtually or, if you are in New York City, in-person. Plus, for all pledges of $8 or more, you will also get electronic versions of the book. Pledges of $20 or more will get you a paper copy of the Camp Logic book. So don’t wait, contribute now.

Bored in a Math Class?

Okay, so this happens to all of us. We get bored. Bored in math or history or biology classes. Bored in meetings or on conference calls. How to deal with such boredom is the question we are exploring on the Ask forum. View boredom (whether your own, your child’s, or your student’s) not as a sign of personal failure, but as a call from your brain that it needs to do something creative, for example:

• Make up a game or a riddle out of what bores you
• Doodle
• Play an existing game, like Knight’s Tour (below)

Find more ideas and add yours to the growing collection on the forum!

The Knight’s Tour – A Grid-Hopping Game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab_dY3dZFHM

When I sat bored in a class (and not only in math class), one of my favorite games to play was the Knight’s Tour game. The way it was taught to me was on a 10×10 grid. But you can play on smaller (or larger) grids, like 5×5 or the traditional chessboard’s 8×8. By the way, you can play it on any rectangular grid, so don’t limit yourself to a square. So here we go:

1. Draw a grid
2. Pick your starting cell and write “1” in it
3. Move as a knight would move in chess and write “2” in the cell you land in.
4. Move again and this time write “3” in the cell you land on.
5. Continue until either you visit every single cell once and only once or until you cannot make another move.

This game will present many choices (apart from the size of the grid itself) – where to start, which way to move first, which way to move next, should you backtrack to the skipped cells? Play a few rounds, and some patterns start to emerge. The game itself is simple enough to be taught to young kids: you can reduce the grid dimensions, increase cell size, and use stickers instead of numbers to mark already-visited cells. But the math behind the game is not simple at all. Enjoy!

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You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print.

Talk to you soon! Moby Snoodles, aka Yelena McManaman

Subscribe to Moebius Noodles newsletters
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I am Moby Snoodles, and this is my newsletter. Send me your questions, comments, and stories of math adventures at moby@moebiusnoodles.com

Deep and playful mathematics for older kids

If you played through the Moebius Noodles book, participated in our multiplication course, or followed the Inspired by Calculus posts  – and wished for playful and deep math like this, but for older kids – then I have great news for you! I am very happy to present Camp Logic by Mark Saul and Sian Zelbo, a book we will produce this year. I first met Mark at a conference of the National Association of Math Circles. Every Math Circle has a unique flavor; not all are compatible. I knew right away that Mark and I share many design principles and education values. In their math circles, Mark and Sian invite children to explore the underlying structure of mathematics through playful and informal tasks. And in Camp Logic, Mark and Sian share their art and craft with parents and teachers.

Crowdfunding: help to publish Camp Logic!

Here is Mark and Sian’s announcement from our crowdfunding page:

Camp Logic is a book for teachers, parents, math circle leaders, and anyone who nurtures the intellectual development of children. It is not necessary to have any mathematical background at all to use these activities – only to have a willingness to dig in and work toward solving problems where there is no clear path to a solution.

You can help us publish Camp Logic! Let your friends, colleagues, and the world know you want children to enjoy the underlying structures of math: share the campaign’s page on your sites, blogs, and social media. Join the crowdfunding event to contribute money for editing, printing, and distributing the book, and to field test the activities. The book will by published in 2014, under an open Creative Commons license.

What parents and math circle leaders say

Sandy Papanek, a math circle parent: Congratulations, Sian and Mark! You have inspired so many children in our community. Now kids (and adults) all over the world will have access to your brilliant and exciting approach to math.

Ashley Ahlin, Michigan State University camp leader: I’m planning our summer math camps at MSU, and would love to use some of this material!

Amanda Serenevy, director of  the Riverbend Community Math Center: I look forward to using this book with our students!

Kathy MacGovan, a math circle parent: Sian gave my daughter the gift of Math! A girl who was not sure about it was transformed into a confident, excited, inventive student.
May her book inspire hundreds of children in the same way. Congratulations Sian!

Chapter preview unlocked for everyone

The draft of the book is already written, discussed with experienced math circle leaders, and illustrated. We are conducting broader beta testing during this crowdfunding campaign. Contributors have a chance to give their feedback for all parts of the manuscript. The campaign reached its first milestone within two days of its start, and now preview and commenting on the first chapter is open for the general public.

Read about Mark and Sian, see the chapter, and learn more about the book at the campaign’s page.

Sharing

You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print.

Talk to you soon! Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova