Measuring
August 13, 2009
Children are easily entertained, but generally their attention span is short, so you have to have lots of different fun things for them to do.
Some of the things that kids like to do are:
Having their picture taken.
Anything to do with water.
Combine these two fun ideas with a bunch of colored measuring cups and you have an exciting math measurement lesson.
Kids can play as they find out about measuring.
Notice how intense the child in the picture is while pouring the water into the measuring cup. Success is so sweet!!!
For more ideas about measuring, see
Measuring Volume
More Later,
Janice
Play and Find Out about Math: Easy Activities for Young Children
Chocolate Calculator
May 7, 2009
I received this as an e-mail today and thought I’d post it for all those that enjoy chocolate!
Chocolate Calculator:
Don’t tell me your age; you probably would tell a falsehood anyway -but the Hershey Man will know!
YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE MATH
This is pretty neat.
DON’T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!
It takes less than a minute .
Work this out as you read .
Be sure you don’t read the bottom until you’ve worked it out!
This is not one of those waste of time things, it’s fun.
1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50 — I’ll wait while you get the calculator
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1759 …
If you haven’t, add 1758.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.
You should have a three digit number
The first digit of this was your original number
(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).
The next two numbers are
YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!!!!!)
THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2009) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND WHILE IT LASTS.
So, I don’t have the patience to figure out how this works. Any homeschool geniuses care to explain how this is actually done?
Science of the Shoelace
April 1, 2009
What can you possibly do with all the endless fun, useful and useless, interesting, time consuming, never ending amount of information you can find on the internet? I don’t know the answer but I do know that I love to share what I find with you.
“Fun, fashion & science in this quirky site about shoelaces. Whether you want to learn to lace shoes, tie shoelaces, stop shoelaces from coming undone, calculate shoelace lengths or even repair aglets, Ian’s Shoelace Site has the answer!”
This is a very amusing website! You are sure to learn some facts that you never knew were possible!
Million, Billion, Trillion…
March 24, 2009
My husband works with numbers a lot in his line of business and has demonstrated for me many times the difference between a million, a billion, and a trillion with the following example which I find fascinating. With these types of numbers flying all over the news lately I thought it would be a good resource to put these numbers in a way you can wrap your mind around.
Million, Billion, Trillion
1,000,000 seconds
11.57 days
00.31 years
1,000,000,000 seconds
11,474.07 days
31.71 years
1,000,000,000,000 seconds
11,574,074.07 days
31,709.79 years
Take a moment to consider the difference between a billion seconds and a trillion seconds. 31 years versus 31 THOUSAND years.
He has recently found the following example on this site that will give your mind a great visual:
What does one TRILLION dollars look like?
All this talk about “stimulus packages” and “bailouts”…
A billion dollars…
A hundred billion dollars…
Eight hundred billion dollars…
One TRILLION dollars…
What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I’d take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.
We’ll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.
A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2″ thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.
Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.
While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet…
And $1 BILLION dollars… now we’re really getting somewhere…
Next we’ll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we’ve been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it’s a million million. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros.
You ready for this?
It’s pretty surprising.
Go ahead…
Scroll down…
Ladies and gentlemen… I give you $1 trillion dollars…
Notice those pallets are double stacked.
…and remember those are $100 bills. (also notice how small that man has become)
So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase “trillion dollars”… that’s what they’re talking about.
Math Links
September 19, 2008
Games:
Worksheet Generators:
