SamizdatMath

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 set of 60 puzzles (20 at each level) of "Square Knot" Puzzles focused on practicing problems solving for early learners (K - 2nd grade) using addition. Why you should try these: One of the things that we should be emphasizing from the very earliest of ages is mathematics as problem solving. This is more than writing a bunch of word problems: problem solving is about using various techniques for finding the correct answer. In this set of puzzles, students have to arrange four numbers so

This activity is based on the documented lies told by the Former President of the United States (FoPUS), Donald Trump. Donald Trump is unique in that all his lies were counted and documented by various news outlets, including The Washington Post. This has inspired me to develop an activity to investigate mathematics. In this case, it is the milestone that Trump reached on January 10, 2018, when Trump told his 2,000th lie, as documented by The Washington Post. Update: The Washington Post now re

This is a set of "inkblot" subtraction strategies that are much different from the cruddy old "drill & kill" worksheets with cutesy characters you probably are using. These activities engage your students in deep thinking about how subtraction works and the strategies we use to solve the column based subtraction algorithm. Do NOT use this if your kids prefer to do routine sorts of problems or they don't want to deepen their understanding of mathematics. The goal here is to deepen conceptual

Sforno is a game I designed to help children learn about different types of attributes. The game is similar to dominoes in that students take turns putting out a "connector" card based on the number of similar or different attributes and then placing a "creature card" that connects it to another creature. There are also 21 different puzzles that use groups of Creature Cards connecting to one another. Sforno is a fun game that is exciting for grades 2 and up.! Comes with full teaching instructi

Here's the problem: There are 100 seats on an airplane and 100 people waiting to get on. The first person loses their boarding pass, so they take a random seat on the plane. If the next person finds their seat occupied, they take another random seat. If their seat is free, they sit in it. Question: What is the probability that the 100th person on the plane will sit in their assigned seat? Oh, sure, you can look up the answer and come up with some convoluted or excessively mathematical explanati

This is a collection of 9 different colorful Cuisenaire Rod "make the road" puzzles which challenges your students to cover a path using exactly one of each rod. Each one has a different colorful background. This is a great activity that your students can do independently during a work time or placed in a math center. There's a handy chart you can fill in with your students' names to keep track of which puzzles they've completed, with fillable form fields. There is also an option for students

This is an approach to teaching the geometric concepts of complementary, supplementary and exemplary (also known as conjugal) angles through groupwork and problem solving using non-standard examples. This makes this activity different from anything else you’re likely to see anywhere. Why is this? Because most curricula treat this important topic as one where students see some examples, solve some lame-o problems related to them, and then more on. No thought is given about how to make this intere

I don't know if you're a fan of Saturday Night Live, but I remember watching this commercial back in the 1990s and thinking, "You know, that would be a really good math activity." But I never got around to it. Fast forward 25 years and I"m at the ATM and I see a screen that shows that I can now choose exactly which bills I want for my withdrawal. OMG! It's time to make this activity "live!" So I went home, made this activity and tried it out on my second graders. Okay, there were a bit cocky at

This is an activity that teaches students to classify acute, obtuse, straight and right angles using semaphore flag signals. Why semaphore flag signals? Because they're fun, interesting and "real." And also, they're a good example of how to teach a concept beyond the "prototypes." What do I mean by this? Well, do an image search on "right angle" and you'll see that the examples that show up are "textbook prototypes." That is, they all have a side resting on the horizontal, the other on the verti

Here’s a nice little “take home” activity that develops both visual spatial skills, mathematical vocabulary AND it's really fun! Here’s how it works: print out the puzzles and challenge booklet on card stock (or laminate before cutting out...) and have your kids cut them out. The kids cut out the “clue cards” and have kids write clues about the different puzzles. Then they can share their cards and look at one another’s clue cards, find the shape it is describing and use the puzzle pieces to “s

This is an old problem I saw almost 20 years ago: suppose you took two dice and rubbed off the pips (dots) from the faces, and instead put on numbers. How would you number it in such a way that you can roll the two dice and make all the numbers from 1 to 36? This is a wonderful problem to study combinations, patterns and general problem solving techniques. It is "hard" in that you can't calculate your way through it, and the solution evolves slowly as you work through the problem. But the soluti

This is a game I invented which can be played by two to three players. Each player gets dealt 4 cards which they place face up in front of them. By selecting cards from the "select pile" (face down) or the "discard pile" (face up), players try to make a "run" of 4 consecutive numbers in a skip counting pattern. The set includes skip counting cards for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12s. You can easily modify this game to make it trickier by having students try to get 5 or 6 cards in a row. My stude

Here is an interesting fact: did you know that most castles built during the middle ages were made from wood? It's a true fact! But you're probably thinking: wait, if most castles were made of wood, how come when you google the word "castle," all you see are stone edifices? The answer is: survivor bias! Think about it: you build a wood castle, and over the years, what's the thing that threatens it most? FIRE! So all those wood castles burnt to the ground over the last thousand years, while the

Teach your students the importance of ratios and unit rates.

This is a collection of ten different four-step mysteries where students have to work backwards (if you'll pardon the pun...) Instead of just taking a number and rounding it off to the nearest hundredth, tenth and unit (which is just soooooo boring and unproductive), the student is given the following clues about a "mystery number" • When rounded off to the nearest unit, the number is 0. This indicates that the number could be anywhere between 0 and .499 - it the number was .5 or above, it w

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

This is a set of 9 Christmas/Holiday themed math mystery puzzles. As you know, one of the things I have always advocated is giving children math problems that are interesting and challenging. I know, I know, this flies directly in the face of “well, if we give them hard things to do, then they’ll get discouraged and think math is hard.” Well, the truth is this: math is hard! And let me say another thing: anybody, young or old, experienced or not, is either lying or has never done “real math” if

This is a collection of 8 different Christmas/Winter Holiday Themed "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? Comes in color and b/w for your printing pleasure! What makes this really cool is th

This is the same as Number Logic Puzzles Silly Creatures with a winter theme, which should really motivate your students! This is a fun little booklet that your students can put together in about 3 minutes and we’ll really give them some fun working logically - and because this is something you purchased from me, your kids will also have a chance to make their own puzzles to share with one another. Ain’t that cool? Comes in b//w and color booklets - the color booklets have been formatted to g