Curricular puzzles for K-9 teachers
A MathPickle puzzle featured on Numberphile… suitable for kindergarten students and older… for the full write-up go here.
This is a Creative Mornings talk about puzzle and board game design.
One of the best features of your puzzles is how they engage a wide spectrum of learners, something that is difficult for teachers. Your math puzzles are remarkable and children enjoy and learn from them regardless of their mathematical understanding. This is as close to a “silver bullet” as I’ve seen.
For the poster of MathPickle’s ideas on elementary math education go here.
Teaching is an experimental science.
The Graceful Tree Conjecture from 1967 is essential in every elementary student’s experience of mathematics. Click here to see it in the classroom.
MathPickle’s original dream was to get $1,000,000 prize money behind these thirteen unsolved problems of mathematics – one for each grade K-12. Click here to see the new dream.
It is impossible to be a great math teacher without teaching great mathematics.
James Tanton and the Global Math Project has created an exceptional framework for teaching bases that is essential in every elementary school classroom. It’s called exploding dots.
The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival and its founder Nancy Blachman refine the pedagogy of problems and promote a non-competitive alternative to competitions. They have a strong commitment to the Spanish community.
Dan Finkel’s Math for Love is a website full of engaging mathematics. He rethemes many puzzles appropriate for elementary school students and creates his own beautiful problems. Prime climb is his board game.
Brady Haran’s Numberphile is one of the top math channels. Most of the videos are not appropriate for the elementary school classroom, but there are many exceptions like this video on the dollar game by Dr. Holly Krieger.
Mathologer produces beautiful videos for his youtube channel. Most target middle and high school students, but this video deserves watching by elementary school teachers as well.
Grant Sanderson’s phenomenal videos on his 3blue1brown youtube channel are stunningly beautiful. They are best for high school and beyond.
MathPickle’s strength is the creation of original puzzles for the elementary and junior high classrooms. I’m also the designer of board games like Santorini.
Please use MathPickle in your classrooms. If you have improvements to make, please contact me. I'll give you credit and kudos 😉 If you are using MathPickle with adults, please mention the website. If you are from a private school, please ask parents or administrators to donate.
Gordon Hamilton
(MMath, PhD)
