MathPickle
85 Followers
Alberta, Canada
About the store
Gordon Hamilton (MMath, PhD) is a mathematician and board game designer. He founded MathPickle.com in 2010 to inject hard, fun problems, puzzles and mini-competitions into math classrooms world wide. In the last year he has been featured twice in the New York Times. In November 2013, he co-hosted a conference of mathematicians and educators to select thirteen curricular unsolved problems of mathematics - one for each grade K-12. In 2015 he will be co-hosting a conference on integer sequences in the math classroom.
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Dots and Boxes xyz (algebra game with $500 classroom challenge)
Want an engaging activity to help teach algebra? Dots and Boxes xyz is a beautiful game that will engage a large spectrum of your class. They'll be saying "x + 7 beats 15 because x = 10."
If you familiar with the standard Dots and Boxes game, get ready for a few twists... First, many boxes are filled with variables. Second, once during the game a player may opt to change one of the variables instead of adding a line to the board. The result is a game where an apparent winner is suddenly b
6th - 10th
Algebra, Algebra 2, Math
CCSS
6.EE.A.2
, 6.EE.A.2a
, 6.EE.A.4
+3
Algebra on Rectangles - single variable - $500 classroom challenge
These puzzles are great additions to any classroom learning algebra. Students are given the sizes of some squares and have to figure out the sizes of all the other little squares. They use that to find the value for x. The results are physically beautiful.
The easiest puzzles here are very easy - suitable for students seeing algebra for the very first time.
The toughest puzzles are quite difficult... but still only require a single variable to solve.
Templates are provided for students to
6th - 8th
Algebra, Math
CCSS
6.EE.A.2
, 7.EE.B.4
, 8.EE.C.7
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About the store
Experience
Gordon Hamilton (MMath, PhD) is a mathematician and board game designer. He founded MathPickle.com in 2010 to inject hard, fun problems, puzzles and mini-competitions into math classrooms world wide. In the last year he has been featured twice in the New York Times. In November 2013, he co-hosted a conference of mathematicians and educators to select thirteen curricular unsolved problems of mathematics - one for each grade K-12. In 2015 he will be co-hosting a conference on integer sequences in the math classroom.
Teaching style
All students, especially the top ones, should experience failure every day. Doing this in a light-hearted way helps remove the stigma of failure from the classroom. I fail in front of my students regularly. It's okay. I get over it. So will they ;-)
Awards & shining teacher moments
No honors or awards yet for MathPickle, but the uplifting testimonials and emails from educators make up for the lack of official recognition. Here is a sample:
"Hi Gordon, I stumbled upon your site, MathPickle.com, this morning and two hours later I'm still there. Just wanted to drop you a brief note to say thank you for all the great resources, ideas, and inspiring videos! I can't wait to use some these materials this Fall with my elementary mathematics methods students as well as try the unsolved problems with my two children. Thank you, Amy Tanner (Assistant Professor, Education Department, St. Catherine University)"
My own education history
BSc
(1988, University of Calgary)
MMath
(1990, University of Waterloo)
PhD
(1996, University of Calgary)
Additional biographical information
Gordon lives with his 6 year old daughter and 9 year old son in Calgary, Canada.
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