Let’s Play Math!

Two blog posts that brightened a stormy afternoon:

New Element
At The Common Room.

Severe Weather Testing Protocols
At Fractions speak louder than nerds…

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Things are still hectic, but at least the phone company guy found the problem and got our “extended DSL” service working. “Extended DSL” is what you get when you live out in the boonies. No guarantees that it will be faster than the ancient modem, but at least it doesn’t tie up the phone line anymore.

And it is a bit faster, so I finally get to enjoy You Tube. If the video doesn’t display properly, you can find it at this link:

Funny Math Problems

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And since this is supposedly a teaching blog, here are some “educational” links:

Cat Power
Cats Can Has Grammar
Pop Semiotics: Cat Macros as Communication
The World Famous Random Kitten Generator

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• Best Kitten Toy Ever
• Cat Quotations
• Why am I Always the Straight Man?
• How to Harness Metacognitive Decision-Making
• Thou Surly Bat-Fowling Hugger-Mugger!

I found this worksheet on the KISS Grammar website, and I loved the quotations so much I just had to share them:

In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.

— English proverb

One cat just leads to another.

— Ernest Hemingway

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My ds has opened his own blog, and he has some funny stories to tell. The first one is now posted at:

Chicken Scratchings

…with more to follow soon. I hope you enjoy them!

And if any of you homeschooling families have students with blogs, I am sure he would enjoy hearing from them. He could use some links for his blogroll.

Check out these related posts: my family, about blogging, homeschooling

To organize a homeschool co-op requires an awesome team of innovative planners. The e-mails keep flying as we attempt to generate dynamic problem- solving strategies. Our goal for the fall semester is to orchestrate learning intensive experiences that will encourage real-world critical thinking in our upper-level students, while at the same time maximizing developmentally- appropriate enrichment for our preschool and elementary communities.

Now you, too, can talk just like a school system bureaucrat with this handy- dandy Educational Jargon Generator. Have fun!

[Hat tip: Matthew Tabor, via Casting Out Nines.]

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Related Posts: homeschooling

You have to see this to believe it. [From IB a Math Teacher at 3σ→Left.]

Or if your tastes run more to the literary than the mathematical, here are some real classics — plus information on how you can join in the fun.

• So You Think You Know Calculus?
• Finding the Limit
• Harmonic Series Quotation
• All Odd Numbers are Prime — a Corollary
• Nothing is Everything

Sometimes I laugh when I read the search engine terms that have led people to my blog. Other times I’m left scratching my head. What in the world are these people thinking? So, for your reading pleasure, I present a few phrases that must have meaning to someone:

man falling off a cliff applet
Well, it sound more dramatic than the cannonballs and flying arrows we used when I took physics.

crazy math challenge free worksheets
As in, “I’m crazy about math”? Or is it, “Math drives me crazy”?

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Here is another highlight from my “To blog about it someday” folder: the Shakespearean Insulter. What fun!

There’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine.
It is all filled up with guts and midriff.

Taken from: Henry IV, part I

And if you are interested in actually studying the bard, here are some links you may enjoy:

Shakespeare. Yes, again. And again.
Advice on teaching Shakespeare to children.

Bardolatry
Many links to teaching advice, book recommendations, and more.

Folger Shakespeare Library

Shakespeare for Kids

There is no reason to put off Shakespeare until your student reaches high school. My then-kindergardener enjoyed the Trevor Nunn version of Twelfth Night so much that she wanted to get her hair cut, “So I can pretend to be a boy.” This is homeschooling at its best: each of us learning at our own level — and loving it.

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• teaching subjects other than math
• more about my family

You know it’s winter when you drive the kids to karate practice, and along the way they alternate between arguing with each other and singing along with the radio — and when you come out after practice, before you can drive them home, you have to scrape the frost off the inside of your windshield.

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Check out these Related Posts: my family