How is your suit of diamonds coming? I'm excited to see if you can make them all happen!
For those not in the know, we worked on a puzzle problem... Can you take a piece of paper the size of a playing card, and by folding it just so, make a single cut and then open the paper up to have a diamond cut in the middle like the Ace of Diamonds? How about a 2, that's a little harder? Now how about a 5, or 7? We figured out some of them. A couple, Trey and Adam did and then showed the rest of us. But we ran out of time to finish the entire suit.
This is math! This is origami (geometry), logic, and more. Math, even what might seem boring and frustrating at times (like a page of quadratic equations or long division), is really just a series of puzzles to solve. If you change your mindset, you can make it more enjoyable!!
The Secrets of Mental Math, can make math more enjoyable and feel like fun puzzles. Make practicing your type of mental math problem a game. Start with wowing a younger sibling, maybe. Or just time yourself a few times and see if you can get better, alone in the backyard ;) The book is due next class, on April 14th. That's the last day of this FUN math unit. You need to have the book read/completed by that next class period, in 2 weeks. But you can continue working on your speed and prowess with the type of mental math problem you choose.
Katie and Trey, you have 2 more weeks to polish your presentations. If you're struggling with the broad topic you have chosen, pick a subset of it to focus on, research and prepare to teach us. Please work on it, practice and be ready to impress us with your new knowledge!
Finally, keep strong on your Ninja Training missions! There's just 6 weeks left til the end of the semester. So finish this training mission and we'll have one more.
Oh, one more thing that goes with my first item...
Check out these websites for more fun! One of them is where I found the diamond playing cards puzzle.
www.storyofmathematics.com
nrich.maths.org (Click on the student "Secondary" buttons at the top)
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