Making Math Fun
Here are some pictures of our activity from December, 2012: Paper Plate Polyhedra. It’s amazing what you can do with a simple paper plate! A tip if you’re rushing out to buy paper plates: the cheaper the better for this one. The super fancy and durable plates don’t fold so well.
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| Polygonal Flower as a warmup |
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| A chair or a puppy? |
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| Beehive pattern |
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| 5 plates fit together |
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| Table view. Note the icosahedron mid-table. |
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| First fingers, then hair pins hold plates together |
Our monthly math circle is finally here! Please join on Saturday, May 11, 2013, from 1-3pm at the Kingston Library (55 Franklin Street, Kingston, NY), where we’ll combine our math enrichment activities with the library’s annual Chalk Walk. After our initial computations upstairs in the Community Room, we’ll leave behind the tomes, manuscripts and books, and head outside to the library’s beautiful garden exterior, to decorate the surrounding sidewalk. It’s the Kingston Library’s annual Chalk Walk, so we won’t be the only ones.
As always, we feature mathematical puzzles and logical games, a sheet of insightful problems, and a hands-on math project that you can take home. This time, however, the hands-on project will be made with chalk, and you’ll leave it on the sidewalk. You’re welcome to snap photos, though, and take those home.
See you on Saturday!
From Las Noticias del 13–19 febrero, 2013:
I’ve just added a Documents page. Right now, you can download problem sets for the math circle we run in Kingston. I’ll add additional documents later.
To visit the page, just click on the documents tab up there in the toolbard.
I have never been so hyper coming from a museum in my life! Today I went to the new Museum of Math in New York City and boy did I have a blast. The exhibits lend themselves to a variety of topics ranging from Emily Noether’s work on noncommutative algebra (simplified with a bird in a bowl) to a visual representation of a statistical distribution using a smaller version of the game Plinko from The Price is Right. I was thoroughly entertained and informed. There’s so much to math that lends itself to beautiful things and unique interpretations, this museum does that well. If you ever have the opportunity to go see it, I highly recommend it. It’s still a new museum so I expect more exhibits will be on their way.
If you want a virtual tour of the place check out this link
http://www.businessinsider.com/museum-of-math-in-manhattan-2012-12?op=1
For information about the Museum of Math and their programs, check out their website http://momath.org/
For now, I’m FREEZING! I’m going to read a math book and make a mug of hot cocoa. Stay warm and we’ll see you soon!
Look! Its a truncated icosahedron…aka a soccer ball! There are 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons. Alan House took this photo December 11th in Madison Square Park. Do you know what is near there? That’s right! The Museum of Mathematics! I can’t wait to go there!
”In the mathematics outreach system, bland teaching offenses are considered especially heinous. In the Hudson Valley, the dedicated instructors who investigate these vicious felonies are members of a elite squad known as the Bard Math Circle. These are their stories.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8lDYrvTILc
This year’s problems for the USA Mathematical Talent Search are available, and the round 1 problems are due on October 22, 2012. This contest is interesting in that students send in full explanations, rather than just the numerical answers. Good luck to any Bard Math Circle students who compete!
New this year is the Mid-Hudson Math Teachers’ Circle. Announced in the Kingston Daily Freeman, the Mid-Hudson Math Teachers’ Circle will extend the Bard Math Circle’s work with local math teachers.
Over the last year, math teachers have been able to receive continuing education credit for their participation in the Bard Math Circle library program (teachers – please check My Learning Plan). This Bard Math Circle and Ulster BOCES partnership will continue this year, and we’ll announce the first activities of the Mid-Hudson Math Teachers’ Circle here.
The New York Math Circle has also invited local teachers to participate in their Math Teachers’ Summer Workshop at Bard College, which recently completed its 4th annual program.
The text of the Daily Freeman announcement is below.
Lauren Rose, associate professor of mathematics at Bard College, received funding from the American Institute of Mathematics to bring a team of educators to the institute’s intensive weeklong program, “How to Run a Math Teachers’ Circle Workshop,” in Washington, D.C., this past July. Rose’s team comprises Jeff Suzuki (former Bard math professor and mathematician from Brooklyn College); Beth Goldberg (Bard Master of Arts in Teaching alumna and middle school teacher at the Linden Avenue Middle School, Red Hook); Sheila Shaffer (middle school teacher at Bailey Middle School, Kingston) and Dana Fulmer (administrator at the Ulster County BOCES).
Experience gained through the workshop enabled Rose and her team to launch The Mid-Hudson Math Teachers’ Circle, which strives to improve mathematics education in local middle schools by hosting bimonthly Math Teachers’ Circles throughout the Mid-Hudson Valley.
