iLearn Technology

What it is: Danica McKellar (also known as Winnie Cooper of The Wonder Years) has written a book called Math Doesn’t Suck.  Danica makes her love for math contagious and helps middle school girls to realize that Math Doesn’t Suck.  On the Math Doesn’t Suck website, students can take a fun quiz called “Do You Hide Your Smarts (especially around guys)”, access a full solution guide to accompany the Math Doesn’t Suck book, learn more about the book, and get news and book signings.  

How to integrate Math Doesn’t Suck into the classroom: There is a large population of girls (particularly in middle school) who believe that they are no good at math, they have already convinced themselves that girls are not as good at math as boys.  They may believe that it isn’t cool or fashionable to be good at math.  Danica aims to change these perceptions with her fun book Math Doesn’t Suck. If you teach girls in middle school math, start the year off with the “Do You Hide Your Smarts” quiz.  It could give you great insight to what your girls believe about themselves in relation to math.  Start a book club or assign Math Doesn’t Suck as reading to start your year.  The book is a fun read that girls will connect with.   Help transform your students perceptions of math and begin the year with girls who believe that they can be successful and good at math.  The book includes

• A unique Troubleshooting Guide to help students get “unstuck” and overcome their biggest challenges
• True stories from Danica’s own life as a terrified math student, confident actress, and everything in between
• A math horoscope, math personality quizzes, real-life testimonials, and more!

Tips: In the trouble shooting section, students will find solutions to these common math problems:

• “Math bores me to death.”
• “When it’s time to do Math, I get scared and try to avoid it.”
• “I get confused and lost during class.”
• “I think I understand something, but then I get the wrong answer in my homework.”
• “At test time, I freeze up and can’t remember anything.”

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math Doesn’t Suck in your classroom.

What it is: Math-A-Thon is an excellent math site with a good cause.  “Math-A-Thon is a volunteer-based fundraising program for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The program includes a free math curriculum supplement for grades K-8 that students complete after obtaining sponsorships from family and friends.”  Students work on math and comprehension skills, age appropriate math problems while building empathy and character.  By practicing math, students can raise money and awareness for St. Jude patients who are battling cancer and various other childhood diseases.  In addition to the free curriculum and math fun books, Math-A-Thon has entertaining online math games and math character profiles.  The Numerators are a math superhero team that is made up of Minus, Symmetry, Octagon and Fraction.  The characters have math super powers that will help students as they solve problems in their Funbook and work at defeating evil robots.   Each character has a fantastic character description (these remind me of the characters on Grammaropolis). Games on Math-A-Thon include Add Like Mad, Subtraction Action, and Bubble Bugs.  Bubble Bugs is an enchanting game where students catch bugs inside bubbles, they practice counting, mouse control, and fine motor skills.

How to integrate Math-A-Thon into the classroom: Math-A-Thon is a website that will help get your students fired up and excited about math and helping others.  The games are available for play whether or not you sign up for the full Math-A-Thon challenge.  Students in kindergarten through eighth grade can work together to help other kids by working on their math skills.  Challenge your class or whole school to raise money for other kids using math as the vehicle.  Add Like Mad and Subtraction Action would be fun games for a math center on classroom computers or as a whole class game using an interactive whiteboard.  To play either game with the whole class, divide your students into two (or more) teams.  Team 1 lines up at the IWB, the first person in the line completes the first problem and then passes play to the next student in line relay style.  Teams try to clear the tiles in the least amount of time.  After Team 1 has a final time, Team 2 tries to beat it.  My students love this kind of friendly competition.

Use the Numerators team characters to learn about math concepts and vocabulary.  There are four members of the current team, encourage your students to add to the superhero team with additional math team members.  Students can create character profiles and back stories about their math operation superhero.  Students could create individual baseball trading cards of their math superhero team member.

Tips: Download a free Funbook sample, these are high quality math workbooks that will have your students problem solving and having fun with math.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math-A-Thon in your classroom.

What it is: Chess Kid is a fantastic way for kids to learn to play the game of chess and then practice their game against kids from around the world.   The Chess Kid environment is safe and secure for kids, students have no contact with strangers.  A parent or a teacher manages all access and friendships online and can easily monitor all activity.   On Chess Kid students learn the rules and strategies of chess and work to improve their game, memorization skills, patience, and sportsmanship.  Students can train with tactic puzzles and exercises, view video lessons, practice tactic against the computer, or read chess articles.  Chess games can be played online against other kids from around the world, in online tournaments, blitz chess, or against the computer.  

How to integrate Chess Kid into the classroom: Chess is a great game that is packed full of skills that help students in other disciplines such as math.  Students must use problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, deductive and inductive reasoning, and the ability to make accurate judgments and estimates as they play.  Chess makes for a great mental workout and develops skills necessary for solving other problems.  Chess Kid is a place where students can learn how to play the game of chess, and then practice through play with kids from around the world or the computer.  Chess Kid can be used with the whole class for lessons and learning the how-to aspect of chess on a projector or interactive whiteboard.  Students can then play on classroom computers, as a math center, or individually in a computer lab setting.

Tips: The American Chess Foundation published that chess can improve a child’s visual memory, attention span, spatial reasoning skills, capacity to predict and anticipate consequences, and the ability to use criteria to drive decision making and evaluate alternatives.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Chess Kid in your classroom.

What it is: Hooray!! It is World Math Day time!   This year World Math Day will be held on March 3, 2010.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with World Math Day, it is a day when students from around the world compete in an online environment in live games of mental arithmetic.  Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play as many as 500 games, earning points for every correct answer.  The students who answer the most questions show up in the Hall of Fame. This is an absolutely free event to take part in.  Students can train for World Math Day every day leading up to March 3rd by participating in arithmetic competition. For those of you home school readers, World Math Day is also open and free to you!  The competition is designed for students 5-18 years old.  This year has a little bit of a new format (the change is fantastic!) with multi-levels for all groups.  Teachers, parents and media are also invited to participate for the first time.  Last year 2 million students from 204 countries participated and correctly answered more than 4 million questions!!

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: World Math Day is a fun competition to involve your students in.  It helps build mental arithmetic and numeracy.  Students from around the world compete in this competition to find out which country has the top mathematicians.   Students have a great time working to get their country to the top (nothing like a little National pride!).  My students beg to be involved in World Math Day each year.  We spend extra time in the computer lab and on classroom computers preparing for the day.  Students answer mental math questions appropriate to their age level. This is a phenomenal way to get some fact practice in!

We make a big deal out of World Math Day and let students have an extended math period to compete on March 3rd.  You could use World Math Day as a Math Olympics for your class and have and opening and closing ceremony for your class, school, or representing your country.

Tie World Math Day into your social studies curriculum.  As students compete against other students from around the world, the other student is represented by a flag.  My students are always very curious to learn more about the other countries and cultures represented. It would also be fun to start a map in Google Earth where you put place markers on the countries that students have competed with.

The platform is open, register your students and start training today!

Tips: If you would like to find out more about past World Math Day competitions check out my posts 2009 here and 2008 here.  There are rumors of a World Math Day iPod App coming soon, check back with the official site for more information.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using World Math Day in your classroom.