Do you want to enroll in Problem Solving for the Young, the Very Young, and the Young at Heart?

Question 1: I'm a math teacher who has a passion for improving how we teach math. I love working with kids (and adults) and really enjoy reading, writing and researching (I'm a bit of a math geek). I enjoy sudoku, scrabble, brain teasers. I heard about the course through the math teachers listserve. I don't currently have an active site or blog. Question 2: I will be working with my 5 year old niece, Jayda, who loves to dance, a friend's daughter, Katya who is 9 and enjoys sports and playing piano and my friend, Vanessa, who is 34 and enjoys music and cooking. Question 3: I'm not sure what to expect from the course but was hoping to learn new ways of adapting problems so that I can apply it to classroom teaching (differentiating). I also am trying to teach through problem solving more often and so am eager to learn more about how people at different skill levels approach the problems. Question 4: Yes, I can commit to these conditions. I am interested in doing a phd or doctorate in mathematics education, so this will also be a way for me to explore a project of this kind. Thank you for the opportunity.

Question 1. I am the mother of 6 wonderful kids and I home school with my husband. When my time is my own I enjoy reading and running (though not at the same time) among other things. My husband is an architect. He enjoys reading, but not running, working with his hands and tormenting our children. We enjoy a variety of puzzles and games; for math I like the challenge of sudoku, logic puzzles and balancing our budget. We heard of the course through an online home school list serve we are on. We do not currently have a website or blog. Question 2. Our oldest is 12 and loves manga, storytelling, and manga. She says math makes her head smoke like you see in the comic strips. Our 10 year old son is passionate about animals and legos. Our 9 year old daughter dabbles in everything and currently is experimenting with sewing and drawing. Our 7 year old daughter enjoys being read to and leading her younger sisters in group imaginative play. Our 4 year old daughter loves to dress up, drawing and writing like the big kids, and being the ever present mommy's helper. Our youngest is 2 and is a mini ball of energy. She climbs, jumps, scales, runs, and wiggles her way through the day copying whatever we say and do and reminding us that life can be full of laughter. Question 3. I am coming in without any expectations, but I am hoping that through this experience I can find new ways to make math more accessible to my children and to help them see that it doesn't have to be "work". Maybe I'll learn something for myself too. Question 4. We are committed and looking forward to working with and adapting these ten problems with our children and each other and to reporting and analyzing the results with all of you.

Q1: I am the mother of three children, ages 7, 5 and soon-to-be 3. I was teaching math at mostly the high school level, and am currently am working on a MA degree (in math). I enjoy playing any puzzles we find and games with the kids such as tangrams, Rummi-kub, cribbage, Set and Uno. On my own, I enjoy running, reading and trying out interesting math questions to potentially use with high-schoolers. I do not have a website or blog at this time. I heard about this course via Facebook. Q2: Our oldest boy will be in 2nd grade and loves reading and his newfound mental computational abilities. He is still learning self-control when it comes to game play, his competitiveness and emotions. My middle child (girl) will be entering kindergarten and loves singing, dancing and pretend –play. She can occupy herself for hours almost unattended in her own creative world. Our youngest (boy) thrives on being active and getting in on any activities with the older two. He’s all about “do it myself” these days. They’re all mostly enjoying lots of library books, biking and being in the water this summer. Q3: I’d like to gain insights into how to weave math exploration into daily life more with the kids. I’m also starting a math circle with some students at my kids' elementary school in the fall, and would like to perhaps gain some ideas. Q4: Yes, absolutely.

Q1. I’m from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I am a math teacher – I teach lower secondary (12 – 15 years old) and high-school students (15 – 19 years old) and I am a teacher trainer, too. I’m interested in math education – how to engage students in learning math and achieve better results. I published some articles on reading and writing activities in math classes and a book on math lessons & critical thinking skills. I’m also interested in using technology in teaching – I use a Moodle platform for offering individualized support to my students, but I also use some Geogebra applets in my face-to-face classes. I’m not able (yet) to create my own Geogebra applets, but I use that ones that are shared by the other teachers in the Geogebra Materials. I organized few times math activities with lower secondary students & parents (in the evenings). There were games, math and fun – NCTM website inspired me to organize this kind of activities and both, parents & students enjoyed. I heard about this course by reading Maria’s ppt. on the Moodle MOOC - I visited the Moebius Noodles website and so I found info about this course. Q2. I have a 2 years old granddaughter – she’ll be staying with me 2 weeks in July. So, she is the youngest member of my circle. We start to learn some math together and I’m sure that in July we’ll learn a lot. She likes to associate numbers with their representation, she likes to play with blocks/ lego for young children. My children are young at heart – especially the eldest one (he is 30) likes to play ‘mill’ (this is the translation of the name of the game ([it is a Romanian game][1]). At this moment we are in holidays - I can’t reach my students as the holidays just started and most of them are travelling with their parents. Q3. I would like to find creative ways to teach math. Not all my students like math – some of them have difficulties in understanding the abstract math concepts. I would like provoke them with creative math learning activities. Q4. I’ll do my best to reach the aims of the course. I don’t know how many local kids I might find during the summer, but I’m sure that I’m able to reach 2-3 kids. [1]: http://www.boardgames-blog.ro/board-games/moara-tintar-descriere-si-regulament

**Question 1.** I am an expat Brit currently living in California and homeschooling my seven year old and five year old twins, when I'm not running around after their almost one year old brother. I have always loved maths although I did not pursue formal study of it beyond high school. At the moment I am spending a lot of time reading about homeschooling as I have only recently taken my oldest out of public school, and am indulging my research obsessive side, largely on the internet. However I still manage to find time to read (always), do a bit of gardening, hiking, and knitting. I like logic puzzles, word puzzles and paradoxes; I also love symmetry and patterns. I love playing with those little wooden tiles and making mandalas! Oh, and I heard of the course through the Moebius Noodles newsletter. **Question 2.** I am hoping to share the course with my local homeschool co-op, so the participants may vary. However my three girls at least should be consistent attenders. The oldest loves reading, daydreaming and making stuff with whatever she finds around the house (a rich resource, as I am not a big tidier). She enjoys stories, talking about ideas and making mathematical discoveries, but hates writing things down and is not overly keen on repetitive computations. Of the twins, one is fairly easy going and also likes patterns and orderliness. She is usually keen to join in with whatever is going on but can be a bit slow to warm up to new things. The other is rather intense and hates being told what to do. She is not interested in much top down learning but wants to explore her own interests (obsessions?) to the nth degree. She is very sharp but struggles with interpreting and following directions. She may not be the most involved member of the course... And they all love to pretend to be all sorts of things, including the things they actually are. I am also trying to convince my engineer husband to join us. He likes computer programming and algebra (although he hastens to add that, of course, the two things are the same...). **Question 3.** I am expecting some fun mathematical activities and explorations. I am looking forward to the analysis part too, that should be interesting. The one thing I want most is probably to foster a love of mathematics in my daughters - the eldest has had her perception clouded by speed 'math fact' drilling at public school which was about as far from her learning style as it is possible to go. I want the word math(s) to have positive associations for them, as it always had for me (I didn't have speed drills but I thought worksheets were actually kind of fun...). **Question 4** I agree to commit to these goals, and look forward to attempting them!

**Question 1. Tell us about yourself. Who are you? What do you like to do? What games or puzzles do you play? How did you hear of this course? Do you have a site or a blog?** *I'm a homeschooler dad whose 3 daughters aren't as interested in math as their dad is. I like to give my kids random math verbal puzzles. My sister told me about the course. I do have a blog, but it isn't connected to my kids schooling. **Question 2. Tell us about the kids (or the grown-up members of your circle). Who are they? What do they like to do? What are their individual peculiarities? How old are they?** I have 3 daughters 11, 9 & 6 who will be participating. The oldest one is very fast at computation, the middle one is very good with concepts. The third one is excited. **Question 3. Tell us about your expectations. What is one thing you want from the course?** I want them to enjoy learning. **Question 4. This course has three goals: 1. To help participants and their kids learn, 2. To make a book about problem-solving, and 3. To do research in mathematics education. Do you commit to adapt the ten problems, try them with local kids, report the results online, and analyze the reports?** I'll do my best.

Question 1. I am a professor of mathematics education -- I design, evaluate, and theorize learning activities. I enjoy thinking about thinking. Here's my [lab page][1]. Question 2. There would about five girls and boys ages 6-9. These are creative children who enjoy construction, technology, science, and nature. Question 3. I want the children to be engaged and fascinated. I want them to want more. Question 4. YES [1]: http://edrl.berkeley.edu/content/dor-abrahamson