SamizdatMath

On September 18th, 2015, New York City standup comedian Matt Little recorded a video of a rat dragging a slice of pizza down the stairs at the First Avenue L train station in Manhattan. On September 21st, Little uploaded the video to his Instagram and YouTube accounts with a bemusing description comparing the rodent to Master Splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (shown below). Within the first 24 hours, the video garnered over two million views. This is an investigation into the perime

If you can find another mathematical investigation into NYC pizza that is more complete than this, then I advise you to buy it immediately. This has taken me several years to research, write, proofread. You will learn the meaning of the word cornicione and why it is very important when talking about pizza. You will learn about the optimal size of a pizza to buy. This resource will save you lots of money in the future.

Are you teaching the quadratic formula to your students? Are you teaching it the same way you learned it in high school? Or maybe college? Or maybe on the street somewhere? Then you're probably teaching it WRONG AF. It's okay: I've been teaching the quadratic formula WRONG AF for decades. I didn't know it, but I was. It wasn't until one day I was working with a group of my college students and made a mistake that I had a realization: we've been teaching the quadratic formula WRONG AF for decades

Cuisenaire Rods and Algebra, you ask? Yes, Cuisenaire Rods AND Algebra go together! Like beans and cornbread, rods and algebra go together! Rods and algebra go hand in hand like bagels and lox. Like cornbeef and cabbage. Like pot cakes and molasses! Like liver onions, so do Cuisenaire Rods and Algebra! Like wieners and sauerkraut, you need to use Cuisenaire Rods and Algebra! Has this convinced you? Okay, here's how it works: one of the things that consistently trips up our algebra students in

This is a mostly excellent introduction for your 2nd - 4th grade students to the wonderful world of fractions. These are "fill in the fraction" games that use Cusenaire Rods as well as Pattern Blocks. The games are designed to be set up in under a minute: hand out the game boards to your students, and by making a long snip, a shorter snip, and 8 super short snips they'll have a game they can use to develop and deepen their basic understanding of how fractions work. The first thing these "hands o

FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "BIG Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportunities to do

FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportunities to do "ta

Description FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportuniti

Description FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportuniti

FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportunities to do "ta

This activity uses the results of the 2016 Presidential Election, as well as all the previous US Elections, to determine if it was, as one ignoramus called it "a landslide." By examining previous election results based on their electoral college and "popular" vote, students will see for themselves using factual data that "landslides" in US Presidential Elections are fairly unique events, and then decide for themselves using the actual facts as compiled by the US Government whether the results of

Many, MANY years ago I had a student in a 7th grade math class who was working on some kind of assignment that required solving the problem 25 ÷ 8. He called me over and pointed out that there must be some kind of error in the problem, because 8 does not go into 25. Being the budding klugarsch that I was, I remarked that, in fact, 8 did “go into” 25 (if you mean how many times can you count up by 8s before getting past 25), but that it didn’t do so without leaving a remainder. Which got me thin

To quote Charles Dickens (from The Pickwick Papers) “What fresh misery is this?” This is what happens when you have time on your hands and you’re thinking to yourself, “well, how can I bring bles’sed torment unto my students this week?” Many (many) years ago I had a student in my sixth grade class (you probably had them) who would respond to any “do now” problem with a quick look and the brag “oh, this is so easy!” And then after fumbling his way through 3 or 4 methods, all featuring a lapse of

Do you want to know what the problem is with all that math you think you're "teaching?" It's missing something, and no, it's not "standards," or "aims" or "concision" or cryptocurrency. No, it's missing something far more important. AND, would you like to use a measurement system used by 98% of all the countries in the world? Your math is missing "ambiguity." And the metric system! Let's look at how your textbook is probably teaching area and perimeter. It probably states the definition, and th

Here’s the problem with teaching any kind of technique in mathematics: once you have kids practice it, they discard all the other techniques they know, even if the ones they discard are faster, more efficient and more accurate. Such is the case with teaching “stacking” of addition problems. Sure, it’s a great skill to have, but is it always necessary? I say this: based on some statistic I ran, between 70 - 80% of all addition problems with two addends don’t need to be stacked. Yet we act as if

This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games. The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board

This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games. The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board

This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games. The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board

This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games. The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board

This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games. The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board