Homeschool Math Blog

My girls made and printed out a math word search for my birthday, and I thought I'd share it with you (click on the image): The answer key is here . It's just a simple thing, but it's still cute to receive something "home-made" fit for a mathy mom : ) In case you want to make your own, it was made at Armoured Penguin website - they give you lots of options and you get a PDF of the word search.

This is an idea for those of you who teach a group--whether in a school or a homeschool co-op etc. The video explains it all... from Terrance Banks . He uses sticky notes for a quick formative assessment during instruction:

Maybe many of you already know about this, but I feel I am behind times sometimes. :) Desmos is a fantastic free online graphic calculator. It is super easy to use, also. It starts drawing the graph while you're still typing! Users can save graphs... see for example this one: a function, its derivative, and tangent drawn to a point . You can change the function as you wish. I changed it a little bit, and this is what I got: Here's another example: Riemann sums that someone created. Again, you can change the function and other parameters. The graphs can also be printed, emailed, and embedded on web pages.There's lots you can do: parameters (with sliders), inequalities, piecewise functions... In fact, many users have used it as a drawing platform by creating a bunch of piecewise functions, and so they come up with pictures like this one:

Aurora Lipper has posted on her blog a neat science activity . It's a can that rolls back to you... she says most adults can't explain why it works. We made it just this morning, just with a bigger can than what Aurora used, so it rolled a longer way before turning back. I like this activity because 1) it's so simple and quick to make, 2) kids loved it 3) it works 4) it illustrates a very important principle in science. Go take a look!