mpsMOOC13 Observer July 8: Problems 4-6, Minecraft, the Cat, paper dolls
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This is the news from the open online course Problem Solving for the Young, the Very Young, and the Young at Heart.
ASSIGNMENTS
By July 14:
Share stories about problems 1-3: http://ask.moebiusnoodles.com/questions/504/assignment-2-due-july-14-share-your-stories-about.html
Plan problems 4-6 and share the plans: http://ask.moebiusnoodles.com/questions/506/assignment-3-due-july-14-how-do-you-plan-to-adapt.html
Earlier tasks:
Plan problems 1-3 and share the plans. We updated the PDF file to have better links to the young adult level of problems.
Sign-up tasks will close down July 10.
- Log in to the question and answer hub Ask Moby Snoodles.
- Leave a comment with your answers to the four questions.
- Schedule a short video or voice conference. – There are time slots for July 7-11
A variety of problem adaptations
I’m thinking about how I bring these ideas to my son who recently turned 4 and involve my daughter at the same time. I am thinking of using pennies (or another counter, but pennies are always available) and presenting even numbers as “friendly” numbers because of the way they pair up and odd numbers as “lonely” numbers because of the one left out. – Angela V. (faroop)
Or maybe using paper dolls – my oldest is very keen on those, she could make some for me! And I’d like to prepare sheets to fill in any patterns we see, just a basic table with number of pins/dolls, number of meeting points etc. – Miranda J. (mirandamiranda)
Problem 2 – my son that likes Minecraft said that in creative mode, you can place a piston that has a brown end and a gray end and then place a certain number of pistons until you have the number you want, you can try it again in another area with the same number of pistons but using different orders. You could use a half block to mark each green to green match. – Michelle G. (mgrunk)
Minecraft Menger Fractal from the Fractal Explorer
Comment!
You can respond to individual people to offer help, or to ask questions. The button is at the bottom right of every answer:
Resources
Share your favorite resources with everybody at the books and links thread. Write a phrase or so on why you like the resource.
Out of the Labyrinth, by Robert and Ellen Kaplan, and ANYTHING by James Tanton. – Rodi Steinig
The Cat in Numberland; The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat. – Hong L. (hliu123)
P.S. We are working with Ivar Ekeland, the author of The Cat in Numberland, to produce a sequel. We are collecting the sequel ideas on the same forum we use for this course: http://ask.moebiusnoodles.com/questions/263/where-should-the-cat-go-after-numberland.html. Ivar also made the first book available at Moebius Noodles, at the cover price.
Posted in Grow
mpsMOOC13 Observer July 5: Sign-up; why and how; calculus for seven-year-olds
Subscribe to receive the mpsMOOC13 Observer by email | Read past issues | Visit the course page
This is the news from the open online course Problem Solving for the Young, the Very Young, and the Young at Heart.
ASSIGNMENTS
By July 7: Plan the first three problem groups and share the plans. You need to do the sign-up tasks to become a course participant, then you can post your plans here: http://ask.moebiusnoodles.com/questions/392/how-do-you-plan-to-adapt-problem-groups-1-2-and-3.html
Sign-up tasks:
- Log in to the question and answer hub Ask Moby Snoodles.
- Leave a comment with your answers to the four questions.
- Schedule a short video or voice conference. – There are time slots for July 7-11
Forum news
Only participants who answered the sign-up questions can post on the forums, but everybody can read.
Post your questions or ideas to the question and answer forum.
Discuss videos with beautiful math dream of Mellany, Sally, Alyssa + Taryn + Dianne + Andy, and Hong, and check out their questions. How do you make more complicated math and its techniques approachable? How can you do math without the kid getting frustrated? How can you focus on “Why” and not just “How”? How can we help a seven-year-old do calculus?
Share your favorite resources with everybody at the books and links thread.
Posted in Grow
mpsMOOC13 Observer July 1: Problem groups 1-3, and the course space
Subscribe to receive the mpsMOOC13 Observer by email | Read past issues | Visit the course page
This is news from participants in the open online course Problem Solving for the Young, the Very Young, and the Young at Heart.
DO NOW
These are our course tasks and due dates.
By July 3: Sign up.
- Log in to the question and answer hub Ask Moby Snoodles.
- Leave a comment with your answers to the four questions.
- Schedule a short video or voice conference.
By July 7: Plan the first three problem groups and share the plans.
http://ask.moebiusnoodles.com/questions/392/how-do-you-plan-to-adapt-problem-groups-1-2-and-3.html
Course space
Most course activities happen at the question and answer forum. Only participants who answered the sign-up questions can post there. That’s why the sign-up questions are in a separate place. It’s lovely to see all the different participants and their goals! Many people share interests, such as board games.
Elyse: I am a homeschool mom of five. I like reading, crafting and cooking. I like to play word games and solve crossword puzzles online and play board and card games with my children.
Adam: I am a mathematics professor at California State University Fullerton and I, with my wife, homeschool our three sons. I really enjoy playing board games (Carcassonne, Dominion, Pandemic, etc.), tennis, and talking about math. I read about the course on the blog, “Let’s Play Math!”. My personal blog is glsr.wordpress.com and my professional site is at bit.ly/adamglesser.
Marianna: I am a meditation teacher (before – owner of a shop for mothers, before – computer programmer). I’ve always loved math, and my husband and my son love it too. I like to solve puzzles, to play board games, to walk, swim and run, and to live in general. I am Russian and I live in Russia. My blog is http://marik_.livejournal.com and my web-site is http://omama.ru
Posted in Grow
Seven books, #StreetMath, Dinosaur+Cat: Newsletter June 30, 2013
I am Moby Snoodles, and this is my newsletter. I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
Books
A small team of dreamers is planning, talking, and writing a story of their math adventures. Several dozen supportive parents and math circle leaders get together for an open online course to modify the adventures for their kids. Everybody’s math creations, loving adaptations, and comments on the story crystallize in the next draft. The project is announced to the world in a crowd-funding campaign. Artist-mathematicians add illustrations, copy-editors do their magic, a team of volunteers comments on pre-prints – and you can enjoy the next young math book!
Where along this path are our book projects?
A sketch of the cover
Playing with Math, edited by Sue VanHattum, is an anthology of stories from math circles, free schools, and homeschooling families. We are preparing its crowd-funding campaign while finishing copy-editing and illustrations.
Problem Solving for the Young, the Very Young, and the Young At Heart by James Tanton, Maria Droujkova and Yelena McManaman is a collection of ten principles of solving mathematical problems. We are running the open online course for it, mpsMOOC13, this July.
Art of Inquiry by Julia Brodsky is a collection of math activities for developing insight, mental agility, and openness. We had it tested with a few math club leaders, and now we are getting ready for a bigger online course.
The sequel to The Cat in Numberland by Ivar Ekeland will be a story to read to young kids. Ivar will choose the Cat’s destination in the next few weeks; future readers are already helping!
Variables and More by Gordon Hamilton and Malke Rosenfeld is a collection of early algebra activities on variety, variations, and variables! SubQuan by Cooper Patterson and Rebecca Reiniger is about a new system for exploring powers, different bases, and the foundations of number systems. Binary Weights by Olga Radko is a carefully arranged sequence of problems for exploring the binary system. These book names are not final. These books are at the start of the journey, nurtured by the small teams.
Ask Moby Snoodles
Is 2.5 years too young for a math lesson?
Blogs and more
Check out the #StreetMath tag on Facebook for infinite hopscotch, double Dutch jump rope, and Chinlone. Add this tag to your posts when you find any street math!
Carollee spreads the word about our problem-solving course at the Focus on Math blog.
“Parents, if you are interested in some math fun that encourages some great learning, you will want to check out this site– Moebius Noodles: Math Adventures. It sounds like a great opportunity to me! What’s not to love about more math!!!”
Nicole of Creating Curiosity blog shares a joyful algebra morning with the kids.
One morning, Delaney was making up silly math problems for me.
“What’s a dinosaur plus a cat?”
“A Dino-Cat!”
“What is a gazillion jillion plus a million?”
“A Gazijillion Million”
I asked her, “What’s 2x plus 3x?”
She cracked up at my ridiculousness, and told me it was 5x.
A few of my favorite math blogs are Let’s Play Math and Moebius Noodles. They both stress the importance of letting kids play with numbers and concepts. It is amazing how our brains work and put together concepts through playing with them, and how those same concepts become difficult to learn as an older student looking at a problem set. This 10 minute conversation of ours was a perfect example to me of how letting the girls do a little bit of silly problem solving can lead to the understanding of much bigger things, even at the ages of 4 1/2 and 2!
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on July 15th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
Posted in Newsletter
