by MathPickle | Oct 6, 2015 |
Round Tower Drill and Kill, is not a typical MathPickle’s puzzle-sheet. It helps with multiplication speed memory. If students have most of the multiplication table already memorized*, they compete in pairs – One student is defensive the other offensive....
by MathPickle | Sep 18, 2015 |
Using Least 1s (Conway & Guy, 1962) Using multiplication and addition try to create the target number using the least number of ones. For example… to get to the number 12, you could do (1+1+1+1)*(1+1+1) or (1+1+1+1+1)*(1+1)+1+1 but the first solution is...
by MathPickle | Sep 16, 2015 |
Thirsty fractions (MathPickle, 2013) In a bar I once overheard the proverbial argument “glass-half-full” versus “glass-half-empty.” A second later my own beer arrived and the waiter inexpertly poured it with the beer glass at the wrong angle so...
by MathPickle | Sep 16, 2015 |
Ballast Puzzles The objective of this puzzle is to find those warships that will tip over because of improper ballast. Start by getting them to understand ballast... It is something heavy that you put in the bottom of a boat so it doesn't tip. I sometimes do a...
by MathPickle | Sep 16, 2015 |
Lazy Lemur Multiplication Let's start with an example. 01746 is good for lazy lemur multiplication because you can multiply it by a digit greater than one so that all five digits get shuffled, but remain the same. Students are lazy lemurs. As soon as they discover...