SamizdatMath

I know you've been holding your breaths for something to come out of the SamizdatMath laboratories, and here it is: The Fishy Addend Game! This is a "gameified" version of this activity, and I think it really rocks, for many, many reasons! a) It get players thinking "beyond the algorithm" - to fill up their tanks, they have to estimate, round off and strategize! B) It is adaptable to many levels of players: using the templates, you can make versions that are as challenging or as supported as

This is a set of puzzles where students work independently to estimate how many cubes it will take to cover a digit or a written number, then cover it with rods of different lengths, and re-organize them on a grid to show how many orange and white rods it is equivalent to. The student then reads the number as tens and ones and writes it down. This is a fun activity for kindergarten and first graders, because it helps students to develop estimation skills, and then carry them over to other number

This is a collection of 40 different hexagonal additional puzzle cards (hence, the title above.) It includes a solution recording sheet, so your students can do them in any order they want. These would be best used for advanced first graders (who want to tackle double digit addition), 2nd graders who are practicing single and double digit addition, and assessing and remediating 3rd graders. There is also a "do it yourself" sheet where students can make up their own puzzles and share them with th

Think about it: the average American eats over 40 slices of pizza a year; if you live to be 80, and assuming you start at around 5 years old, this is 75 years of pizza x 40 slices per year, or 3,000 slices in your lifetime! Since this delicious food is such an important part of our life, doesn't it make sense that we understand everything there is about the economics of buying pizza? This is a series of activities that examines the economics of pizza in several different ways. First, it shows

Greetings, Phrens! This is an activity that takes 1 - 2 class sessions and teaches your young students (grades 2 - 5) something that is less scary than human reproduction or racial discrimination: negative numbers! Seriously, if you aren't introducing your students to negative numbers at an early age, then you're not doing the best job you could at being a math teacher, and I'm not saying that to hurt your feelings, but because I want you to look good (and, as my hero, Vidal Sassoon said ove

Okay, phrens, you're teaching your students how to round numbers and this is what you are NOT going to do: "Students, today we're going to learn how round numbers to the nearest hundreds. To round a number to the hundreds, start by placing your finger on the number furthest to the left (places finger on number) and then look over to the right and then sing this song, "If it's less than 4 or smaller, round it down; if it's 5 or greater, then go right up!" (If you'll pardon the pun.) Then give yo

Here's the deal: you want your students to practice rounding off numbers so you give them one of these rando "worksheets" with lots of numbers saying "round off to the nearest ten," "round off to the nearest hundred," yadda yadda yadda and they do it and forget about it and it's just a superficial way to approach this important topic. This takes the whole topic and reverses it, making it far more interesting and useful: each booklet starts by asking "When rounded off to the nearest thousand, it

Okay, you covered “odd” and “even” number with your students and they now know that all even numbers have a 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8 in the ones place (they don’t “end” with those digits, because numbers don’t have a “beginning” or “end,” they have “places”) and are odd if they have the digits 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 in the ones place. All good! But let’s ramp this up a bit: your students now know one of the basic concepts of mathematics, better known as “parity,” which gives them an opportunity to conduct an i

This is a collection of 8 different "matrix addition" puzzles which use funky symbols as clues to figure out the answers. They were designed for 2nd graders, but you could use them with advanced first graders, or just throw them at some third and fourth graders to see how they react. They're sort of algebraic puzzles that you can have a lot of fun with and who doesn't like fun? What makes this really cool is that I also included a set of "blank" puzzles which your students can customize, share

Greetings teacher phrens, Here's the activity you've been waiting for if you want your students to become more flexible and fluent with non-routine number facts and combinations using MENTAL MATH STRATEGIES; Schools o' Fish challenges students to take 15 different numbers and arrange them in groups so that they add up to the same number (at least, in this version.) Features: • EZ Cut n' Paste Technology: the pieces have been arranged in such a way that your students can cut out all 15 in abo

"On a bad day, I have no ideas. On a good day, I have a lot of wrong ideas. At least with wrong ideas, I can mix them together and come up with a right answer." That's the idea behind this number puzzle, which I've intentionally designed to be really tricky and frustrating (at least, it was for the 3rd through 6th graders I tried it on.) The relationship between the three columns appear to be arbitrary, but there actually is some method to the madness: the students should be encouraged to come

Here’s a set of puzzles that will promote the use of “backwards thinking.” That is, the technique is to look at where you want to “end” and then work backwards step by step in order to get to the beginning. Some people refer to this as “guess and check,” but that is incorrect: that technique involves putting in possible solutions and then starting from the beginning to see if the solution is correct. Eh, no, that’s not quite the way it works.In working backwards, you get to the beginning by work

This is a second set of 10 3-D spatial problem solving puzzles that use 2 - 3 of the seven Soma pieces. There are three different kinds of puzzles: Basic Puzzles: These are puzzles which show the solution to the puzzle in three different colors. Students have to locate the proper pieces and assemble them as shown in the diagram. Intermediate Puzzles: These are puzzles where the solver is told which 2 - 3 pieces to use, but not how they fit together. Students locate the individual pieces and th

This is a set of activities designed to introduce students to a technique for finding the number of paths on a matrix from corner to another. In the beginning problems, students are permitted to use any technique they like, including the "brute force" method of tracing each and every path. Fortunately, for the first couple of problems, this is too confusing, but as the grid gets larger and larger, there are more and more paths to trace, which can get very confusing. From here, a new technique i

This is a set of 2 activity sheets that use a minimum amount of text so that students can engage in solving word problems without the obstacle of decoding dull sentences. The problems are tricky not because of the wording, but because a) there is "interleaving," which means that depending on the problem, the student may have to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. In addition, some of the division problems have remainders that have to be interpreted. There are 4 problems p

This is a collection of 10 different algebra puzzles that use 3 different variables which are represented as rectangles, triangles and hexagons. Yes, we know that "adult" algebra uses X, Y and Z, but since this is designed to be appealing for our younger students (and because abstraction is still tough for them) I've used these geometric shapes instead. I've also limited the kinds of numbers students use by focusing on using 0 - 9 digit cards. This is so your students will not get frustrated wh

Should you be teaching algebra to young students? YES! When should you be doing it? NOW! Why should you teach algebra to young students? Because it will challenge them while reinforcing their basic computation skills. Compared to those boring "practice sheets" you're using, algebraic problem solving presents a greater challenge and is also more motivational, because your students know they're doing something hard, not just repeating an exercise over and over and over and over again....

10 different puzzles, from Easy Peasy to Ouch My Brain Hurts: print out the puzzles, cut out and attach to paper plates, add beans (or whatever counter you like) and set your kids loose! Develops addition and subtraction skills as they look for combinations of beans that go together to make a total between the two pans. Easy to make and store, includes instructions and solutions, as well as a recording sheet AND a "DIY" sheet so you can make more of your own. EVERYBODY NEEDS THESE IN THEIR CLA

Greetings Phrens, This is an experiment for a third grade teacher who is struggling to engage two dyslexic students in the process of answering mathematical story problems. She showed me a set of story problems and described how a teacher had to sit next to the students and read the problems to the students, who then solved them. I thought about this and stated that this seemed like a very hard way to engage these students in problem solving, because the task was really more focused on reading

Note: There is now a video tutorial that goes with this activity: Division With Remainders: Just Do It (RIGHT!) Your students are "learning" about division, and if you're using a really, really cruddy curriculum, then they probably all sound like this: "I have 24 blah blah blahs which I'm packing into cases of (choose some divisor of 24.) How many cases will I be able to make. This, my friends, is a lackadaisical and churlish approach to teaching students about solving problems with division.