two steps removed from yesterday

I printed out the images from yesterday and took photos of the combinations. Not sure how well it turned out, but it was fun (again) to have some new questions to explore.

Of what, I don't know

Because sometimes you see things, and you start asking questions, and those questions lead to new ones.

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A Measuring String of One's Own (Or, it's always better if you think of it yourself)

The child is out of school for the summer. Since Friday. She has been despondent (and grumpy), but after a rough couple days she has decided to take matters into her own hands. She's going to have school at home. This afternoon she set up her own summer school complete with math, reading, spelling, creation time, journal, body works and research projects. The goal? Five hours of school work logged per week in 15 minute increments. "Sort of like a summer reading program, except for everything!"

Today's creation time led to this "new" (to her) invention: The Measuring String.  She used a ruler to mark off the string in foot-long increments plus (for some reason) four more inches.

The first thing she measured was her wingspan. (Hello? Vitruvian Man!) Then she measured her waist.

Then her height. And then her height from last year which is marked on the wall in the other room.

And then, because another one of her goals for the summer is to earn money, she packaged the Measuring String so that I could buy it from her.

Hmmm. It's going to be a long but highly interesting summer, me thinks.

[#TMWYK] Logic & Equivalence

Some logic and equivalence #tmwyk* this morning:

8yo (trying to get me to do something for her): Please plus please!
Me: What does that mean?
8yo: It means yes.
Me: So, what does a thank you + thank you mean?
8yo: That means yes, too.
Me: How about a no thank you plus a thank you?
8yo: No.
Me: And a no thank you plus a no thank you?
8yo: Maybe.
Me: How does that work?
8yo: Because there are two no's and two thank you's.
Me: You mean there's an equal number of both?
8yo: Yeah.

A little later, about our cats Max and Lucy:

8yo: Max + Lucy = Trouble
Me: That's for sure.
8yo: Actually, cat + cat = Trouble.
Me: So, Max + Lucy = Cat + Cat = Trouble!
8yo: NO!
Me: Why not? If cat + cat is trouble, and so are Max + Lucy, then don't Max + Lucy = cat + cat? They both equal trouble...

She had reached her limit with my questions by then, but I found the whole series of ideas rather fascinating.  First because this was the first time I've had this particular kind of conversation with her. It seems Christopher Danielson's Talking Math with Your Kids is really having a positive influence on my conversational abilities! Second because the whole idea of equivalence in equation form seems to flummox kids. The equal sign often seems to mean "an answer" and not a relationship. It was fun to test/push her a little on this idea and see how it would play out in conversation.

*#tmywk is the hashtag for Talking Math with Your Kids on Twitter. You can also go to Talking Math with Your Kids.  You'll be glad you did!!

Math, Dance & the Shoehorn, Together Again

First off, what's the difference between this:

and this?

Which one provides the more meaningful learning experience with multiplication? 

I mean, just look how many ways we can experience and come to understand multiplication! Stunning. Given this reality, why would we want our students to only understand multiplication as a series of facts?

So, now, take a look and tell me the difference between this (done as part of a computer science education project):



And this (start around 0:25 and watch until at least 2:00):



Which one provides you the more meaningful experience with Hungarian folk dance traditions?  

Can you see what happens when the dancing's sole purpose is to be shoehorned into a formal mathematical framework (the sorting algorithms)? 

To me, Video #1 has some interesting footwork but the choreography seems stilted and out of context -- sort of like only ever memorizing multiplication facts.

This may just be my own particular sensitivity but I'm curious what you think. Bonus points for going to the dance/computer science project website, trying out one of the sorts and reporting back how or if the dancing helped you any more than the computer animation they provide.