Every second week, “Aunt Math” sends a math word problem in the form of a letter to students recounting math experiences she has had with her neices and nephews. These stories are usually seasonal or center around another theme. The stories are easy to read, in large print and entertaining. At the end of each story, Aunt Math poses a math problem for students to figure out. Within the site are also tips for solving math problems, information on how these problems are related to math curriculum for parents and teachers and Aunt Math also provides solutions to each problem. The site also provides easier math problems for younger students or students who are having difficulty with the math concepts creating a nice scaffold for the various levels of students in your class. As the easier problems share the same storyline, students don’t have to feel that they are doing something different because they are “dumb”.

Unfortunately, the thing that really made the site neat and interactive has been discontinued. When students were done with their solutions, they could write in to Aunt Math and explain to her their solution and how they figured it out. The responses from all the students would be listed on a seperate page like comments on a blog. Aunt Math would write back giving them tips or encouragement. My students really enjoyed that aspect and would take the email home to show their parents. As I checked back prior to writing this, I discovered that that is no longer being done. Citing a “commitment to promoting responsible use of the Internet for children,” the site has stopped responding to individual e-mails. Now, I am not sure how this is promoting a responsible use of the internet as it seems to me that they are just advocating that students should not be using the internet as a communication tool at all instead of teaching how to use it safely. Also, if you were advocating a safe and responsible use of the internet wouldn’t you just set guidelines as to how comments were placed on the site along with a way to filter comments instead of going completely to one end of the spectrum and banning any communication at all? I think the site is just taking the easy way out.

Having said that though, the site is still useful and I enjoy the stories and challenges. It makes word problems that are more interesting and relevant for students.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Lee Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it’s queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there’s some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Today’s site is a great one that can be used for a wide range of ages. It is a Math Dictionary which not only gives great explanations for mathematical terms but is also interactive in that it allows the users to see the term in action. I have used it in my class not only as a demonstration term but also as a way for students to explore concepts being taught in class as an intro or a fun extension.

The site is A Maths Dictionary For Kids .

The creator also has some great tools for writing linked from the site as well as a maths site for older students.

I Can’t Write a Poem

Forget it.
You must be kidding.
I’m still half asleep.
My eyes keep closing.
My brain isn’t working.
I don’t have a pencil.
I don’t have any paper.
My desk is wobbly.
I don’t know what to write about.
And besides, I don’t even know how to write a poem.
I’ve got a headache. I need to see the nurse.
Time’s up? Uh oh!
All I have is this dumb list of excuses.
You like it? Really? No kidding.
Thanks a lot. Would you like to see another one?

-Bruce Lansky

Today I am going to provide you with another resource that I use time and time again. Whenever I need graph paper, I always you this resource to print out paper for my students to use. The resource is a series of graph paper with the intersecting lines at various sizes. You choose which type of graph paper to use depending on the size of the squares you want to have. I don’t remember where I obtained the resource but it is one I use over and over again. They come as one .pdf file.

linedgrids.pdf

I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.
I like the domesticity of addition–
add two cups of milk and stir–
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
And multiplication’s school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Just as a teaser, here is one of the videos on education which is very relevant to where our education system needs to go.

Picture of a Poppy, The Menin Gate, Ypres

Today’s tool is not really that interactive and probably not really usable for my Grade 3 class. However, it is kind of a neat sight that gives a different perspective on world statistics. It basically takes the map of the world and distorts it to reflect a variety of statistics. The site is called Worldmapper and it provides users with a number of different topics on which to compare data on. Here is one in the education category:

Territory size shows the proportion of all spending on primary education worldwide that is spent there, when measured in purchasing power parity US$.

Now, though they have information on how they create the maps, I don’t know where they get their information. But it is a neat site and the goods category would be useful when discussing where our goods come from which is something I discuss with the children as part of our look at trade between communities. One of the activities I used to do was to get students to find 10 goods at home and write down where they were made. We then surveyed the class and created a graph on the countries and the numbers of goods found for each. Using worldmapper, it would be interesting to see if the data matched. This might also work well with the site, Gapminder which, “enables you to explore the changing world from your own computer. Moving graphics show how the development of all countries by the indicators you choose.” Here is a video demonstrating it’s use from TedTalks: 

This site has downloads for a “March Madness Poetry” contest. It is set to coincide with the NBA tournament but really could be used anytime. You can download the information in separate portions or download the whole thing in one download. Teh downloads include the directions, an information thing on how to effectively read poems, a set of 64 poems (which I use all the time and includes the great spiderman poem), a tournament bracket layout page and other things. I highly recommend these resources and I have used them for my own Grade 3 poetry unit every year.

While the poetry information takes most of the page, there are also other resources that may be useful including a mystery unit literature study, To Kill A Mockingbird resources, a package on Costa’s questioning and some literature circle information. All in all a handy site though I wish they would continue to add to it.

To get to the site, click here.