by MathPickle | Sep 16, 2015 |
Prime Time (Based on Rivest, Shamir, Adleman, 1977) Prime Time is one of the must-play games in your classroom whenever you start tackling prime and composite numbers. References to the $1,000,000 prize are a long way away, but I hope one day to be able to tell you...
by MathPickle | Sep 16, 2015 |
Mondrian Art Puzzles People who gaze upon a piece of Mondrian art should ask how he decided which colors to paint where. The disgruntled person may even ask what the piece of artwork might have looked like if Mondrian had taken the time to color it all in… In...
by MathPickle | Sep 15, 2015 |
Daedalus and Icarus try to Escape (Lothar Collatz, 1937) The Collatz conjecture from 1937 is essential in every student’s experience of mathematics. Here we present it with a backdrop from Greek mythology. It gives students practice in multiplying by 3 so when the...
by MathPickle | Sep 15, 2015 |
Animal Subtraction The Graceful Tree Conjecture (Ringel et al., 1967) These puzzles are the best way to introduce students to subtraction. The puzzle is based on a classic unsolved problem that deserves to be in every student’s experience of mathematics. The...
by MathPickle | Sep 15, 2015 |
Squaring the Square (R. L. Brooks, C. A. B. Smith, A. H. Stone and W. T. Tutte, 1930s) Give students addition and subtraction practice and link these numerical activities to geometry. A fraction of students, predominantly girls, thrive when the beauty of mathematics...
