Mathspig LOVES maths. However, 2020 was a year ruled by MATHS and Mathspig is happy to kiss it goodbye.
Here’s to a HAPPY MATHSY YEAR.
Posts Tagged ‘ideas’
Trick 8: Spooky Maths Magic
May 4, 2018
Spooky Maths Magic
Requirements; Smart board/data projector.
This is mental maths, but not hard maths. You can play this video by Marco Frezza directly to the class.
It may not work on everybody, but it would be very interesting to see how many students are fooled by this spooky magic man.
Trick 9: Coin Trick. How to throw 10 HEADS in a row!!!!
April 30, 2018
Requirements: A coin for each student & smart board or data projector.
First ask your students to toss a coin 10 times each.
Ask each student how many heads in a row they threw.
Now ask students ‘Do you think it is possible to throw 10 heads in a row?
It can be done. Here is how you do it.
Derren Brown is a UK mentalist, magician, hypnotist and maths guru. He’s awesome. He shows audiences how a lack of understanding maths, especially probability, leads to misinterpreting the facts.
Now play this video to the students:
Trick 10: A Foolproof Gambling System
April 23, 2018
Math Mentalist Devises Foolproof Gambling System
Requirements: Smart board/Data Projector
or Chalk & Talk
This is the most awesome way to introduce probability.
Mentalist Derren Brown devises a foolproof gambling system. He sends a girl , Kadisha, the number of a winning horse in race to be run the next day. It wins. He sends her the winning horse and race number 4 more times. She ends up with winnings close to £ 1000 before the final race. Derren convinces her to borrow money for the last bet. She does. She places £4,000 on a horse. Did it win?????
Watch Part 5 of The System
If you are not convinced Derren Brown can come up with a foolproof system for horse race tipping, let me explain The System. He took 7,776 e-mail addresses, divided them into 6 equal groups and sent each group a different number for a horse in a 6 horse race to be run the next day. Naturally, one group of 1296 had been given the winning horse number. This group was divided into 6 again and given the number of the ‘winning’ in a six horse race the next day and so on.
Race 1: 7776
Race 2: 1296
Race 3: 216
Race 4: 36
Race 5: 6
Out of 7776 punters, only one punter was given in advance five horse race winners in a row. Was it Kadisha. You will have to watch the Youtube above.
You can watch THE SYSTEM in full here. It takes 47 mins.
Crazy Ways to Make Middle School Maths Cool
November 11, 2016
I started my maths workshop in Hamburg by stirring up some friendly rivalry. And what better way to do this than by using statistics.
Which is the biggest country?
Australia is 21.5 times the area of Germany. So I counted off 22 workshop participants and pointed to one saying ‘Your’re Germany! Ha!’ Here’s another way to compare areas:
Which country has the largest population?
Germany has 3.5 times the population of Australia.
But the really interesting questions are:
Who drinks more beer?
Who eats more meat?
Here are the answers to these and other interesting questions from the introduction to my workshop with apologies to Brisbane and Perth:
Here are some amazing ways to make middle school maths AMAZING:
1. Defronting the Maths Classroom
2. Amazing German Maths Blog
3. m&ms and Exponential functions
4. Take a Mandelbrot Set Selfie
5. Best Fun with Algebra Ever
6. The Multi-legged Beast that Walks
7. Maths You Hold in Your Hand
8. Are you Maths Blind?
9. Real World Maths Selfies
10. Magical Music Machine built with Maths
And don’t forget:
Maths News from around the World
8. Funky, Fab and Fantastic. Yeah! That’s Middle School Maths.
August 26, 2016
One reason why students think maths is a waste of time is because they do not see it in their world. It’s not just middle school students. We are all maths blind.
Here is the challenge. At the beginning of your next maths class:
Ask your students what ‘mathsy’ thing they have on them and see what happens. Mathspig started her ICME 13 Workshop with that question and maths teachers from around the world struggled to answer. Here is what happened.
More ideas below.
Note: I missed the significance of ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ Quote. It was from the great mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, 1776.
More Maths on or around you:
*food snacks: nutrition information, calories, cost.
*medication: recommended dose, concentration eg. 5 mg, quantity, cost.
*room temperature: weather forecast.
*Light Bulbs: Watts, brightness (lumens, inverse quadratic function)
*Flooring: Wood (parallel lines), carpet (tessellations), coefficient of friction (Don’t want people to slip in the wet).
*Windows, doors: Hinges (Fulcrum, Effort as a Hyperbolic function), opening/closing door is an equation of a circle, angles, fly screens (pattern), windows (pulleys sometimes), handles (knob or lever impacts on effort)
Table/desk/chair: Based on statistics to fit majority of students.
Leaning back on chair: Centre of Gravity. Watch out.
Sharpening pencil: Circular motion, sharpness of blade reduces force needed. Why?
Pens, books dropping on floor: Good old gravity. Works every time. Quadratic fn.
Fonts: Size. Based on statistics for readability. Watch the small print.
Jewellery: Geometric shapes & patterns, but also symmetry of diamond facets, weight of diamonds in carats, purity of gold in carats (different carat).
Zips: Interlocking pattern hopefully not interlocking with your skin.
Heating: Flow rate, cost, vent locations.
Architecture: Of building involves length, height, area and cost.
External Noise: Wall thickness. Sound proofing.
Rubbish: Recycling. Why do it?
Tights: You buy them using a height weight graph on the back of the packet.
9. Funky, Fab and Fantastic. Yeah! That’s Middle School Maths.
August 26, 2016
Here is a fabulous idea for prompting students to ‘see’ maths in the world. This activity was designed by Axelle Person Faughn, North Carolina University (Below).
The idea is simple.
Ask students to take pictures of maths they see in their lives. The photos below were taken by Axelle’s students.
Alternatively, you can give students an equation and ask them to find a picture representing that equation. Axelle gave Mathspig a slip of paper with the words ‘Demonstrate limits’. I sent back a picture of curly hair and a link to the equation of a helix.
……………………………..
Is that pasta really a Sine Curve?
10. Funky, Fab and Fantastic. Yeah! That’s Middle School Maths.
August 23, 2016
Maths today is invisible.
It is hidden, most often, behind screens in computer code. But every so often some magical machine arrives that makes maths visible.
Look at the Marble Machine (below) by Wintergartan a Swedish folktronica band, then ask your students ‘what maths was involved making this machine?’
It didn’t just happen. Some suggestions below.
Maths involved:
*length of xylphone keys. These will be accurately measured to produce the correct note. Ditto width and thickness.
*rate of rotation of gears, wheels
*parabolic path of marble falling on xylophone keys
*ratios of gear wheels
*statistics. The marbles do not always bounce indentically off the keys. So the cup needs to be big enough to capture – what?- 99.99% of the bouncing marbles. I think less. You can count the number of marbles – ball bearings – that have escaped. You can see them on the floor at the end of the video. So you can calculate the % that escape.
*timing (Each element of the machine has to be timed to create the musical effect. Not chaos.)
*Engineering Maths: Strength of laminate. This will have been tested by the manufacturer. Laminates have a much greater tensile strength than one piece of wood.
*Computer Cutting: A program exists to accurately cut out those wheels from a laminate.
*Cost
*How do you buy 2,000 marbles (ball bearings)? Do you count them? You would buy them by weight.
*Any more suggestions?
4. The Harry Potter Algorithm
November 25, 2015Here is the Harry Potter Text:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
“Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?” said Malfoy. “And he’s supposed to be our teacher!”
Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first – SMACK!
She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered. Harry, Ron, Crabbe, and Goyle stood flabbergasted as Hermione raised her hand again.
“Don’t you dare call Hagrid pathetic you foul—you evil—”
“Hermione!” said Ron weakly and he tried to grab her hand as she swung it back.
“Get off Ron!”
Hermione pulled out her wand. Malfoy stepped backward. Crabbe and Goyle looked at him for instructions, thoroughly bewildered.
“C’mon,” Malfoy muttered, and in a moment, all three of them had disappeared into the passageway to the dungeons.
“Hermione!” Ron said again, sounding both stunned and impressed.”
,
Readability Harry Potter: Method 1
Break the above text into sentences. Count the words, sentences and syllables.
You will find the text breakdown and syllable count here. Syllables in Harry Potter Text
Word Count =
Sentence Count =
Syllable count =
The syllable count is tricky. You will find my sentence-by-sentence count here.
Readability Harry Potter: Method 2
You will still have to do a sentence count, but you can cut and past the text into the following:
Word Counter
and
Syllable Counter
Results:
Word count = 138
Syllable count = 194
Sentence count = 14
Readability Harry Potter: Method 3
You can calculate the Flesch Kincaid Score by cutting and pasting text here or here:
Maths Mystery Box 2: CURIOUS
March 25, 2015
Maths needs PR.
We need to talk it up. Spark their curiosity. Cafes, churches and libraries use chalkboards, billboards and prominent signs to get passersby thinking.
Why not maths?
Use a sandwich –style chalkboard ( if you are in a school where such a board wouldn’t be pinched or vandalised) or use a chalkboard or whiteboard in the maths room.
PROMO SAMPLE:
I’m the Maths Guru. Most people pick … Shhhh! … seven.
Explanation:
According to Alex Bellos, Favourite Number Survey, (The Observer, 12 Apr 2014) when asked to pick a number between 1 and 10 most people pick seven. This has a lot to do with our idea of randomness. One and ten do not seem random enough, nor do even numbers. This leaves three, five and seven as our choices. Forget nine. (Ooops! I did. You will too unless you have nine dogs or nine ex-wives/husbands or the like.) Five is in the middle and therefore does not seem random. We are left with two numbers and seven feels more random than three. According to Bellos
‘Seven “feels” more random. It feels different from the others, more special, because – arithmetically speaking – it is.’
Try it out!!!
Other PROMO signs you might put up in a maths room include:
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
Maths Guru Answers here
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