SamizdatMath

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 NOT your typical "is this a prime or composite number, and if it is composite, show the prime factor" exercise. No, this is an activity that actually demonstrates how figuring out prime factors is linked to encrypting information securely. If you know about the Russian Postal Service puzzle, then you'll appreciate this. There are 10 different puzzles, and then a "DIY" where your students can make their own "prime puzzlers" to share with one another. If they're really good, send them to

Howdy peeps, how are you all doing? I think you’re really going to like this activity (it is not a “product,” it is an activity) and if you paid the royal sum of $3.95 for it, you should consider it a bargain: it represents the work of someone who has 30 years of pre-K through college mathematics behind him, so you know it’s good for your kids. This activity is based on the idea that in order to embed concepts you have to develop “rich associations” between them. That is, when the student “se

Ben and Ilene are having an argument: they are looking at a number line with a 0 on one end, and 1 million on the other end. The question is: where would 1 thousand be? Ben & Ilene have different insights into the problem: Ben says that 1,000 is a large number and so is a million, so it must be close to that side. Ilene says that 1 thousand is much smaller than 1 million, and it belongs closer to 0. Is either of them correct, or is one of them "more correct" than the other? I've included 5 exam