A contest

Choosy Homeschooler is holding a little contest where you can win $50 worth of my Math Mammoth books.

Click here to enter.

This, in fact, has given me an idea to hold a contest of my own. I think I'll do it as a Thanksgiving contest, sometime in November.

Roman numerals and other number systems

I recently created a worksheet generator for Roman numerals. Feel free to use it.

Roman numerals is not any major topic in the math curriculum. They are still used in clocks, to number chapters of a book, write year numbers, and such, so students need to study them, even if just briefly. Fortunately it isn't that difficult a topic.

Many youngsters might, in fact, be interested in learning about different number systems that have been used in various civilizations over the centuries.

I just posted about writing in math class, and this topic would make for an excellent writing project that connects math, writing, and history. Then you wouldn't be doing it just for the sake of learning the math, or the historical facts, but also to practice writing a report or an essay.

It's probably the easiest to work into the curriculum if you're homeschooling, because classroom teachers may have to just kind of scurry by the Roman numerals on into the next topic. But even if you're a teacher, consider printing out a few interesting articles about the various number systems, such as the Mayan, the Egyptian, or the Babylonian, and then giving these printed articles as extra reading to kids who might be interested in such.

Ideas for a writing project on number systems

1. A report on Mayan, Babylonian, Egyptian, or Chinese numbers. Even younger students could probably write a few sentences and give a few examples of their numbers. You can easily find articles to print about them on the Internet. Wikipedia is a good starting point.



2. Another writing idea is to study several number systems at once, and write a "comparison report" where you compare these other systems to our current number system, which is called the Indian-Arabic number system.
   
   Some main points for such comparison are:
   
   * How many symbols are used?
   * Are they used additively? Or is it a positional system?
   Or a mixture of both?
   * What are the bases used? (could be 10, 20, 60)
   * How easy is it to perform the basic four operations?



3. Yet a third way is to write a report about base 2 numeral system and systems with other bases. This would work best with middle and high schoolers, and should appeal to any computer science minded folks, BTW, because computers use base 2 in their "internal workings".

---

Some resources

Use these web sites to get you started.

Roman Matching Game
Drag the Roman numerals to the corresponding Arabic numerals. If you win the next game will be faster. See if you can beat the clock!

Roman Numerals - Wikipedia
An article explaining the usage, origin, and a chart of Roman numerals.


Numbers
A comprehensive website about various number systems, such as the Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, Greek, Roman, Mayan, and Arabic.

Numeral Systems - Wikipedia
Wikipedia article on numeral systems, which contains links to Hindu-Arabic systems, Asian numerals, Alphabetic numerals such as Greek or Hebrew, and other systems including Mayan, Roman, and Babylonian.

Mayan Mathematics

Writing and math

This post is inspired by Denise's recent coverage of the topic.

Combining writing and math, or using writing in math class is an interesting topic (to me anyway). Most kids probably feel that they are far from each other. Now, if all you do is plow through calculation problems, then of course you're not writing, but at some point students need to be able to write complete solutions to math problems. They need to be able to communicate their thoughts clearly.

Here are some ideas for you to get started with writing in math class. Please use your judgment in using these; for some kids it might be counterproductive - for example, if the child hates writing so much that math class is his/her only "refuge" from it.

1. Younger students might enjoy making their own "mini math book" with some calculation problems and a few word problems. (My daughter constantly makes math problems for her stuffed animals : ) )


2. Math journaling. This means that the student writes a short entry into a separate journal book at the end of some lessons, or every few days. These entries could explain a new concept just learned (with a picture), give a problem and its solution, or perhaps talk about a mistake and how it was corrected, etc.
   
   The entries could also be more personal and deal with feelings or wishes towards math. You can find more ideas and math journal prompts here.


3. Making your own math dictionary. This could be especially helpful with geometry. I've written about this before; check it out.


4. Writing word problems and solutions to them. A student could first simply rewrite a word problem from the math book by changing the numbers and/or the wording in it. Later you could ask him to make problems of his own, for example a word problem that employs addition and multiplication, or a word problem about shopping, going to the hairdresser, or some other real-world situation.
   
   Students need to learn to write readable and understandable solutions to math problems, anyway. This becomes more and more important as they advance. Here's a guide of how not to write math solutions. It's written for students who take part in math competitions, but you can see the basic ideas clearly from the examples they give, even if you don't understand all the math.
   
   
5. A complete essay on a math topic. Try a topic that is not usually covered in school math, such as Fibonacci numbers or fractals.

If you are interested in trying this out, there are many more resources on writing in math here, compiled by Denise.

And feel free to share your experiences with math and writing, if you have any.

Nominations begin for Homeschool Blog Awards

Please go here to nominate your favorite homeschool blogs for the 2008 Homeschool Blog Awards.

There are 24 categories. A blog has to get at least three nominations before it will enter the voting stage. Nominations are accepted till the 24th of October.

So if you like my blog... feel free to nominate it.

Yours truly is also offering prizes for some of the winners. You can see the full prize list here.

Coffee Shop

I couldn't resist playing this fun game and you and your kids might not resist it either.

Basically you first buy some inventory to make coffee, adjust your coffee recipe (more or less milk, more or less sugar, etc.), define a price, and go selling. These funny animated folks pass by your coffee stand and voice their opinions, whether it's needing more milk or is too pricey or good quality for the price, etc.



At the end of each day you'll see a graph of your earnings and of your reputation. Then you go shopping for more inventory and adjusting your recipe and price. The play continues for 14 days. And the weather changes, too.

Hoodamath.com/games/coffeeshop.php

My daughter wanted to keep the coffee price way too low, like $1.65 or $2.00 and in no time was almost running out of money... : ) My hubby played it for hours.

The game practices decision making and analyzing several variables - critical thinking in other words.

Math Mammoth Blue Series for grades 1-3

For Grades 1-3

16 Blue Series books
Price: $34 (download)

All in all these books contain about
760 lesson & practice pages.

Buy at Kagi

Now there's another option to buy the Blue Series books as a package deal: Blue Series Package, Grades 1-3 contains all the Blue Series books appropriate for first, second, and third grade. This is currently priced at $34 and contains these 16 books from the series:

Addition 1
Subtraction 1
Add & Subtract 2-A
Add & Subtract 2-B
Add & Subtract 3
Place Value 1
Place Value 2
Place Value 3
Multiplication 1
Division 1
Clock
Measuring
Early Geometry
Money
Canadian Money
European Money
Introduction to Fractions

Learn more!

News article: Math skills suffer in the U.S.

I found this an interesting read; the study it talks about has found how undervalued math and math skills are in the States. As a result, very few kids want to pursue it.

Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds

QUOTE:
"The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued."

Worksheet news

Some worksheet-related news from HomeschoolMath.net site:

• Grade 5 worksheets - ready-made worksheets, yet different (randomly generated) each time.
  
  
• Decimal worksheets generator just got better. Now you can let the number of decimals vary randomly in the problems. Also includes a bunch of ready-made worksheets that you generate just by clicking on links.
  
  
• Addition worksheet generator got better also. Now you can set the range individually for addends 3-6, and randomly switch all the addends (previously only addends 1 and 2). This page also has some links to click on to make worksheets readily, without actually bothering with the generator itself.
  

Decimals worksheet generator

UPDATED! My Decimal worksheets generator just got better. Now you can vary the number of decimals randomly in the problems.

Also, the page now includes a bunch of ready-made worksheets that you generate just by clicking on links - what could be easier than that? Of course you can still use the generator to tailor-make worksheets to your exact needs.

This generator makes worksheets for decimal addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.