Car Talk Puzzlers as Math Challenges

One of Car Talk's weekly features is theCar Talk Puzzler. The Puzzler is usually a math puzzler although some are language-based riddles too. As I was listening last week it hit me that the Car Talk Puzzlers could make great little classroom activities to get students thinking about math and language in a format that is a little different than standard textbook examples. Click hereto access sixteen years of Puzzlers 
and their answers.

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Constructing Your Own Set of Tangrams

 

Materials a rectangular piece of paper suitable for folding a pair of scissors a ruler (optional) Activities A complete set of tangrams consists of seven pieces: a small square two small congruent triangles two large congruent triangles a medium-size triangle a parallelogram You can make your own set of tangrams from a single piece of paper. Just follow these simple steps: Fold a rectangular piece of paper so that a square is formed. Cut off the extra flap. Cut the square into two triangles. Take one triangle and fold it in half. Cut the triangle along the fold into two smaller triangles. Take the other triangle and crease it in the middle. Fold the corner of the triangle opposite the crease and cut. Fold the trapezoid in half and fold again. Cut along both folds. Fold the remaining small trapezoid and cut it in two.

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Units and tens

I use cups to represent the numbers in my class an its so useful for my pupils, in these photos some of them are trying to represent numbers using cups

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Learning Multiplication with Playing Cards

This is a fun game for teachers to incorporate into their teaching lessons and it is fun because of the partial element of surprise. Kids love surprises and the best part of this game is that the students will have even more fun learning because they won’t even realize they are in class. This will make learning how to multiply even less of a hassle for teachers.
What you will need:
Deck of cards per 3 players at a time- average class size 30-35 (12 decks)
The  students are first put into groups of 3. There are 2 players that compete against each other. The third player in each group is the person who controls the dealing of the cards. The dealer takes two cards from the deck and places them face down. Then once both players are ready, the dealer flips over the cards. The students try to multiply the two cards that are exposed. Whoever answers correctly keeps the cards. The cards then have a point system. If the student answers incorrectly then the other student has a chance to guess the correct answer. If the student answers correctly then he/she obtains the cards. If the student does not know the answer or does not answer correctly, then no one obtains the cards/points. Therefore, whoever has the most cards at the end of the game is the person that wins.
Teachers can also continue playing this game by taking each winner from each group and have the best of the best compete against each other to find out who knows how to multiply the best. The winner of the entire class can then be assigned to some special task or treat.
Tips:
To make the game more student centered you can buy children’s playing cards that could be a favorite character of the students, or a theme of a popular kids movie.
To make this game even harder or for students who are older you can add
one more card to the original 2 card format. Therefore, instead of students having to multiply 2 cards, they would have to multiply 3 cards. This would make this a lot more challenging and really test the multiplication skills.
Teachers can also have the students make up a sentence that incorporates the answer of the two cards. This exercise will encourage them to learn how to multiply – and, stimulate their creativity as well.

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Point System for Multiplication Tables

You can teach the students a fun activity incorporating multiplication times-tables with this inquisitive game that includes the concept of a point system. Who doesn’t love a little competition? I think just about everyone, including children. So with that in mind how about teaching them a little about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well?
Did you know that most people in general tend to do better with any activity when they are competing against someone else? One great way to accomplish this is to incorporate a technique through a fun and stimulating school activity.  The way that this game works is that each student is given different times-tables problems.
Each problem is given a certain point amount. For each correctly solved problem that the student has correct, they are assigned the amount of points associated with that problem.  For example, 1×1=1, they would be given 1 point; 2X2=4, and so on. If the student answers the problem incorrectly, they do not gain any points.  As a matter of fact, they lose the amount of points that correspond to the problem they answered incorrectly. This technique gets the children even more interested in learning multiplication tables as well as answering the problems correctly. It will also get them motivated to correctly answer the equations, especially those with the higher numbers so they can accumulate more points.
At the end of the assignment each student’s score is added up and the person with the most correct problems, as well as the most points is designated as the winner. If there is more then one winner, then you can do a sudden death match and have each player compete against each other until there is a winner. Or you can reward both of them with the title of “Multiplication Masters” and they can be the designated team leaders when you play this game another time.
You can also add even more fun to this game by breaking the class up into teams and assigning 5 players to each team. This allows the students a chance to interact with each other and learn the value of teamwork, plus for those students that are struggling they will be able to work with other students that can help them out.
By incorporating this fun game into your teaching plan, learning multiplication tables will be a lot more fun for kids, plus they will benefit from working with other students. They will also learn a valuable lesson that integrates the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

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Area of a circle

Dear students ,
Watch this video and do the activity.

 

Aim
To find the area of a circle of given radius by paper folding,cutting and pasting.

Material Required
Coloured Paper
Pair of scissors
Fevistick/glue
Geometry Box

Method
Step 1 Cut a circle of given radius from the coloured paper.
Step 2 Divide the circle into 16 equal parts by paper folding.
Step 3 Cut 16 parts and arrange them to form a parallelogram.
Step 4 Take the last cutout and again divide it into 2 equal parts.
Step 5 Arrange the 2 parts and the shape in step 3 so that a rectangle is formed.
Step 6 Measure the length & breadth of the rectangle & calculate its area.

Observation
We observe that the cutouts of the circle are arranged to form a rectangle.
The length of the rectangle is equal to half of the circumference of the circle and breadth of the rectangle is equal to the radius of the circle.
The area of the circle is calculated using the formula of area of the rectangle.

Result
Length of Rectangle =____________________
Breadth of Rectangle=___________________
Area of Rectangle = ___________________

So, the Area of Circle = _________________

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