Holiday Math

by recesstec Holiday Math tips

Sunday Sit, Sip, and “Sync” ~ 12-4-2011

We know.

It’s hard to keep the “Kiddos” focused without turning into “The Grinch”.

So, we decided to offer you some help to get you through the next few weeks.

If you teach Math, here are some links to add some “Holiday Cheer” to your lessons.

Make sure your Adobe Flash and Java are up-to-date.

Watch out and be warned.

Some of these are slightly “addictive”.

Light the Christmas Tree (Problem solving with rotations/alignments.)

The Twelve Games of Christmas (A little bit of a lot of math.)

Operation Snowman (Problem solving using which operation?)

One Hundred Snowballs (Count and move 100 snowballs.)

Don’t Break the Ornaments (Use the pillows to catch/bounce Them.)

Christmas Sudoku (Without numbers, so think visually!)

Penquin Number Units (What units make a number?)

A Christmas “Cut the Rope” (You get “do-overs”.)

“Mouse-over” all the links to find another resource hidden in a link.

Hang in there.
(And it’s OK to “count down”.)

Upper Math? Yup!

by recesstec Math tips

Sunday Sit, Sip, and “Sync” ~ 11-6-2011

How much can I say about this calculator?

#1. It’s free.

#2. It “graphs”.

#3. It’s “online”.

Now I can’t vouch for much more since I belong to the generation where mostly boys took the advanced math classes and carried around slide rules in their back pockets.

I only made it through Geometry, Advanced Geometry*, and Algebra I and II.

Sad, but true.

(The exception was my younger sister who was the smartest person I knew next to my father…
Both of them were left-handed which leads me to believe that left-handed children are most certainly exceptional.)

Shannon, however, took accelerated math classes, and taught upper math.

She assures me this site is worth sharing.

Click here to visit https://www.desmos.com/calculator/

*Note: I loved Geometry; it was like drawing.

Math Live…

by recesstec Math SMARTBoard tips

Monday Morning Message ~ 9-26-2011

Math Live makes math come alive.

This little website was a frequent resource in my classroom and is perfect to use on your SMARTBoard. It provides excellent reinforcement to math lessons, and is appropriate for grades 5 and above.

Math Live was developed under the direction of the Learning Technologies Branch of Alberta, Canada Education.

The four strands of math presented are:

Numbers,
Patterns and Relations,
Shape and Space, and
Statistics and Probability.

The lessons are presented in “real world problem-solving” format with videos that include a cast of animated students.

Lessons included are:

Place Value
Multiples, Factors, Primes and Composites
Proper Fractions
Equivalent Fractions
Comparing and Ordering Fractions
Comparing and Ordering Decimals
Addition and Subtraction of Decimals
Multiplication of Whole Numbers
Division of Whole Numbers
Multiplication and Division of Decimals
Patterns
Area and Perimeter
Area and Perimeter of Irregular Shapes
Volume
Time
Triangles
Polygons
Slides, Flips, and Turns
Tessellations
Ordered Pairs
Displaying Data
Probability
Estimating

The presentations include interactive components, along with parent and teacher notes, and assessments.

The only drawback we can see is that this is a flash-based website, so it cannot be viewed on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod.

This is one of the websites to which I often linked within my SMARTBoard lessons making it a quick reinforcement or review.

We both love this site, and we hope you find something useful on it, too.