You can find this game at A Kid's Math in the Math Games section. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure this game out and now I'm addicted. Even though I still don't have the Internet, I can load the web site at school or at the library and then play at home. After I win a game and click "play again," a new game is loaded. Thank goodness for javascript.
I can't believe it — twice in one month! My time? 1:35. Not good, but good enough. Of course, I couldn't even do today's USA Today five-star Sudoku puzzle. Next Saturday, go play Set and post your time at Deb's blog!
I have played Set since July of 1999 when I was introduced to it in a discrete mathematics course at Rutgers University. I played every single day. That's a lot of games. It is the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning. I have learned that a good time for my Set game is a good brain day. A bad time will be a slow brain day. Then I stumbled across the Set Weekly Challenge at Debra's deblog.com. The times of the Set players there astounded me. I wanted so badly to win the badge for a week but it seemed impossible. Until yesterday! My time of 48 seconds beat everybody (and that's saying a lot because I use a laptop with no mouse, I still play it first thing in the morning without caffeine, and my competition have had times as low as 20 seconds).
It was Ski Day at school but many students didn't go. I had three different sets of students painting my Mancala egg cartons today. It will take a few days for them to dry because they are saturated in paint.
Update here.
I piled them up in front of Possum's little countertop bed and she isn't sure if she likes this. (I had to use this opportunity to post a couple of the few good photos I get of this girl.)
What is Mancala? It is an ancient game from Africa that is mathematically significant for your children to learn. I am not even going to bother any of us with the mathematics but if you like, you can have your children talk about strategies the will increase their chances of winning. It is a rather complex game to learn, but once you learn you become addicted. I used to know how to play years ago but I had to learn all over again in order to write this post. You cannot overemphasize the importance of game playing for mathematics learning and for family relationships.
Possum is still a bit startled by the mess about her and hopes I take the cartons to school in the morning.
Toothpicks (and, not as safely, matchsticks) can be used for a vast number of mathematics games in order to develop geometric knowledge, problem-solving skills and critical thinking, meeting NCTM standards. I have embedded a Flash game in this post so that you and your family can play Matchsticks. It has a scoreboard that will keep your scores forever! So be sure to bookmark this post so that you can come back and play often. The game will open in a new window, so you may have to enable popups for this post only.
Every year I give my students a puzzle to make and take home. I choose puzzles that will amaze their families and friends. This year we will make these guess-the-number-cards. After you print and cut out these cards, you give them to a friend. You ask them to think of a secret number between one and fifty. Then have them give you back any card that contains that number.
You can "guess" their magic number by adding the powers of two that are on the bottom left corner of each card that they return to you. For instance: if their magic number is 17, they will return cards 1 and 16, which are in the bottom left corners. You add 1 + 16 and tell your friend that 17 was their magic number. They will be amazed! And best of all, they probably will never figure out how you guessed it.
What's the secret? In base 2, 17 is written as 1001 (base 2) because it contains one 16 (or 2^4), no 8s (or 2^3), no 4s (or 2^2), no 2s (or 2^1) and one 1 (2^0).
You can see that their are many lessons here. I could connect this game to Egyptian and Russian Peasant multiplication. But I'm leaning towards using the Towers of Hanoi game as an extension.
The Tower of Hanoi (sometimes referred to as the Tower of Brahma or the End of the World Puzzle) was invented by the French mathematician, Edouard Lucas, in 1883. He was inspired by a legend that tells of a Hindu temple where the pyramid puzzle might have been used for the mental discipline of young priests. Legend says that at the beginning of time the priests in the temple were given a stack of 64 gold disks, each one a little smaller than the one beneath it. Their assignment was to transfer the 64 disks from one of the three poles to another, with one important provisoøa large disk could never be placed on top of a smaller one. The priests worked very efficiently, day and night. When they finished their work, the myth said, the temple would crumble into dust and the world would vanish
What does this game have to do with our number guessing cards? Read on and you shall see. The legend mentions that 64 disks are used. You can't possible play with all sixty-four disks. The game usually comes with up to seven disks. There are wooden versions with seven disks that you can buy here (the source of the Legend of the Towers of Hanoi above.) You can also play online at many sites.
Do you see that this game is about the powers of two?
29 Hand - The best hand in Cribbage and a 216,580 to 1 shot. Consists of holding three 5s and a Jack, with the Jack being of a different suit than any of the three 5s. The starter card turned must then be the fourth 5 and being the same suit as the held Jack, makes the hand count 29.
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Polar bears, they come in pairs.
How many polar bears do you see? 6
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Unplugged Project