Introducing Alexandria Jones
It began with some 4th-8th grade friends who met in my dining room to work math puzzles and play games. At first, a few of the kids wondered how anyone could have fun with math. But we did enjoy ourselves, and Math Club grew until we couldn’t fit anyone else around the table.
When one girl had to move away, I thought, “Why not send Math Club with her?” Thus was born Math Club by Mail newsletter (which was later renamed Mathematical Adventures), a 4-year enterprise that brought puzzles, strategy games, art projects, historical tidbits, and more to readers as far away as Hawaii. Never very many readers, I admit — certainly never enough to make a profit — but it was a blast while it lasted.
The newsletter followed the adventures of homeschooler Alexandria Jones, her archaeologist father, and the rest of their family as they discovered a triangular treasure from ancient Egypt, puzzled over patterns in Pythagorean pebbles, or explored the applications of math in daily life. We learned about hieroglyphic math, fractals and chaos theory, logarithms, geometric algebra, and how to multiply any numbers using only the times-two table.
Now I’m planning to resurrect Alexandria Jones and her family on this blog. The stories will appear sporadically, as I find time to transcribe them from my old back issues. I hope you will have as much fun reading her adventures as I had writing them.
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That sounds like fun! I can’t wait!
Hi, Theresa!
The first article is up now—part 1 of a 3-part series that will be followed by a collection of historical tidbits. I hope you enjoy it!
The secret of the pharaoh’s treasure
Alex and her adventures sound like fun to me, too. Too bad we didn’t have something like this back when I was in school, 60 yrs ago! I believe that I would’ve learned to like math more. Have you thought about teaching after the kids are all grown? More kids need to be exposed to the fun that can be had with math, don’t they?
What do you mean, after the kids are all grown? That’s too far away to think about, when I can’t even plan for next week!
(Yes,I know, that time will come sooner than I can imagine.)