As a math activity, I had C1 attempt to figure out how much all the gifts from the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” would cost. I found current prices (pdf) for each on the web. Seriously, what isn’t on the web these days? I then made an Excel file to help the kids calculate the total cost.
You can download the pdf of the worksheet and the answers. Enjoy your holiday calculating.
I’ve reached the section on probability in C1′s math book. I hate probability. I stunk at it in college. And I stunk at it even more in grad school (grumble grumble, basis of statistics). Any how, so I’m now teaching probability to C1.
One little section was on making predictions about the whole based on a small sample. To demonstrate this, I went to the corner convenient store and bought a couple of bags of snacks. I then dumped them all in a big bag. The goal of the activity was to predict which snack type occurred most frequently and least frequently. I made a paper that allowed them to graph their sample. Then they had to write a sentences with their predictions. Only then could they eat their snacks. I also bought soda, so we had a bit of a snack party.
As many of you know, I’m active in BOINC. One of the projects I participate in is PrimeGrid. It’s a project that helps search for prime numbers of certain types. I don’t even pretend to understand the math. I just know a prime number is one that is only divisible by one and itself (for example 3, 5, 7, 13…). There’s a bunch of different sorts of special primes that correspond to certain formulas. But like I said, I’m not going to even pretend to understand the intricacies of the math. I’ve been an on again, off again participant for over a year now. I come back to it for two reasons. First, the work units themselves are short (at least for the subprojects I’ve chosen). And second, Rytis, the project administrator is a genuinely nice guy. He’s a college student in Lithuania and his English is probably better than mine. We chat via IM at least a couple times a week.
A few hours ago, I noticed I had gotten an email. My in box has been pretty quiet over the last few days because of the holidays so I was surprised to see the email. I was even more surprised to see that I (well, my computer) had discovered a prime big enough for inclusion in “The List of Largest Known Primes“.
My prime is 28739399349*2^333333-1 and contains 100354 digits. It’s currently ranked at #4306. When I submitted it, they estimate that at the current rate of prime discovery it will remain in the top primes list for approximately 10 weeks. So I guess I get 10 weeks rather than 15 minutes of fame.
Just for fun, I took a screen shot of my current certificate of computation.
As per my typical Tuesday teaching schedule, I had a double with my B1 math class today. The first half of class we did the page in their text book. There’s no point in me going through the problems step by step (two digit subtraction with borrowing) because everyone can do it fairly easily. Recently, I’ve put a twist on it to make it a bit more fun, I told the kids that I’d give a sticker to the first boy and the first girl who completed the page 100% correctly. In addition, if everyone gets 100%, I’ll give the entire class a sticker. We’re getting closer to everyone getting 100% on the page. What’s stopping us? Silly mistakes like borrowing when you don’t need to or forgetting that you did borrow. No big deal. I still make mistakes and I’ve been doing this for… well… you don’t need to know how long I’ve been doing it. Once we were done with the page in the book, it was game time.
Today’s game was Math Basketball. We happen to have a toy basketball hoop and some (albeit moderately deflated) balls on the bookshelf in the foreign teachers’ office. I have no idea where the set came from. But hey. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. When there are materials for activities, use them!
Here’s how I structured the game. Divide the class into two teams. My favorite method of doing this is by rolling a die and then counting around the table. The first person goes on Team A. Roll again, counting from the next person. The person you land on goes on Team B. Repeat until everyone is assigned to a team.
I had three levels of math problems worth 1 (single digit addition/subtraction), 2 (two digit addition/subtraction without carrying/borrowing) or 3 (two digit addition/subtraction with carrying/borrowing) points. Students chose the point value they wanted. If they answered correctly (I supplied pencil and paper), they had the opportunity to shoot a free throw for an extra point.
I put a time limit on the game (as in we played until the end of class) but you could easily do X number of rounds. At the end of the game, add up the points. The team with the most points wins. In my case they get a sticker.
You can easily adapt this game to other subjects. How about spelling for a phonics class? Or identifying parts of speech for a grammar class? Be creative! Have fun with it!
And don’t let the lack of a basketball hoop and a ball stop you. A wadded up piece of paper and an empty trash can will work just as well.
Bingo is actually a pretty good educational game. I’ve played it with my traditional ESL subject classes and with my math classes.
For my low level math classes, I’ve played classic Bingo. This helps those students match the number words they are hearing with the numerals on their Bingo card. I’ve also played what I call “Math Bingo”. The playing card looks the same as a traditional one. Instead of calling out numbers, I use addition or subtraction problems. You could also use multiplication or division, depending on the level of your students. I’ve also played with colors and shapes. However, I haven’t been able to locate the site I used in the past to generate the Bingo cards.
For my other classes, I have a blank 5×5 Bingo grid. I give my students a list of words based on their current material. They have to take those words and write them in the grid. From there, the game is played just like regular Bingo. If you don’t have a lot of time, you can use various websites to pregenerate the cards for you and just hand them out. But the nice part about having the kids make their own Bingo cards is that they also get to practice writing (and there is no whining that things are unfair).
For my lowest level students, once we’ve finished learning the alphabet, we play ABC Bingo. The idea behind it is the same as playing classic Bingo with my low level math classes. Students match what they hear with what they see. One level up from this is using Bingo cards with just letters on it, but calling out words rather than letters. So if I call out the word “apple”, students will have to cross off the “A”.
I discovered through Google a custom Bingo card generator that can handle words and numbers. It’s pretty basic, but it’s fast and easy to use and it just gets the job done. You can find other sites out there. Many of the teaching sites that have a puzzle or game section will often have Bingo, but the question is whether it’s only offered to paid subscribers. Personally, I do fine with the site I linked. If there’s a list of words I want to use in the future, I’ll just save it as a CSV text document. Then I can copy and paste it into that site.
On Monday, my D2 class finished their first unit in their speaking book. The passage was about why people study English. As part of our discussion, we talked about different ways that students can improve their English skills. There are, of course, the usual ways. Go to class. Do your homework. Practice speaking with your friends. Talk to your teachers. Write in a journal. But the kids also brought up using instant messaging or email penpals. In addition, I pointed out that many of them had younger siblings studying English. And by helping their younger brothers and sisters, not only would they practice their own English, but also gain a deeper understanding by trying to explain things.
So Diana was at school early today. I asked if she wanted to help me teach my B4 math class. And she did. Diana did a really great job.
I let her watch while I went through the first two problems with the class. Then I let her try on the third and fourth problems. The students really responded to her. They were quiet and attentive. They answered the questions she asked. She sounded confident. Aside from being a bit young, she is every bit the teacher.
All in all, I was proud of B4 and I was really proud of Diana.
I had a double period with B1 today. On the days I have doubles, I try to do real work the first half of class and then play a game the second half.
B1 has been doing subtraction with borrowing (which as an aside, the current Harcourt math series calls “regrouping”) the last few class periods. I was tired of my standard games (Math BINGO, The Slap Game, Around the World). So, I decided to ask our friends at Google.
The biggest pain in searching Google for math games is weeding out all the online ones. But some snazzy search modifiers got rid of most of those. I came across as game called “Top This!” (sorry I don’t have the link here at home). All you need is a deck of number cards. The directions on the site say to use 1-10 (or 11-20 for older students) but the only deck of number flashcards I had (and I had no time to make any) were from 1 to 100. No big deal. I was interested in two digit subtraction with borrowing anyway.
To play, divide the class into two teams. Have each team stand in a line on either side of your desk. Place the number cards in the middle. One student from each team plays at the same time. Have those two students close their eyes and draw two cards from the deck. Subtract the smaller from the larger and award all four cards to the student who has the lower score. You may be asking yourself, how does “Top This” come into the whole thing. The activity was initially written as an addition game. So each team tried to get the higher sum.
What made it especially interesting for my students was that some of the number flashcards had different numbers on the two sides. So they had to think about what numbers to use to give the smallest difference.
B1 seemed to have a lot of fun with the game. There was a run where Team A kept getting cards that had numbers that were ridiculously close together and Team B was getting just the opposite. But it’s just the luck of the draw.
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