Welcome back, my friend! Today we are chatting about some mathematical ideas beginning with the letter C that you probably encounter on a regular basis. I had the idea for this mathematical alphabet several weeks ago when I was clearing out some boxes and came across a book I kept on my middle school classroom bookshelf for my students to read.…
This post is brought to you by the letter B. If you are new around here, I recently came across a math alphabet book I had on my middle school classroom book shelf and decided this idea would be fun for the podcast…and here on the blog…so in each episode this season I’m talking about a few math ideas that begin…
I first had the idea for this series of posts and podcast episodes while cleaning out my home office. Clearing out might be a better term for it because I’ve been transforming a bedroom that used to belong to our son into an inspiring work space for myself. While I generally find the acts of painting and wallpapering tedious, I have…
My t-shirt says it all. “When will I ever use this?” is a question I get a LOT as a math teacher. Especially from middle school level students. Believe it or not, I’ve even had conversations about this at the college level. Have you ever told someone (maybe even your child) that you didn’t see the point in learning algebra? That…
One of my favorite things to do on the first day of a math class is to get my students thinking about what math is and how they use it. I once had a student in a community college class who made it his mission to prove to me that it is possible to go an entire day without using math.…
If I asked you to define “mathematics,” what would you say? Is it solving problems? Is it memorizing number facts and rules? Is it fun or boring, easy or challenging? Is it a set of useful tools to help you through life or is it a bunch of irrelevant nonsense that you will never use? We each have our own ideas…