Working On A Detective Story To Teach Math Properties

[Door slams open and in walks a pretty, blond, number 1 with high heels]

Number 1: "You a detective"



Detective Number 4: "You askin, or are you tellin"



Number 1" What difference does it make"?



{Detective number four is staring out the window]



D4: "The difference is always in the maken tootse"



Number 1: Listen, i need help! Now, are you the detective i need to speak with or not?"



D4: "You don't need a detective love, you need muscle and muscle aint what i do ya see?"



D1: "How do you know what i need?"



[detective number 4 turns and looks her over]





D4: I know, cause them heels been talkin since you turned the corner on Elms street. Whose in trouble huh? Your husband, Your lover. What difference does it make...you need muscle and muscle ain't what i do.



[detective 4 turns and looks back out the window]



Number 1: It's my brother...x...he's got himself into some trouble and now he's got himself held up



D4: Whats this got to do with me heels?



Number 1: He needs your help detective...I, need, your, help [she gets closer to and puts hand on his arm]



D4: Let me get this straight, your baby brother shook some hands and bet on black when he should of bet on red and now that he wants to take someone elses money for a ride you volunteering my services? I think I'll pass sweetheart



D1: It's not that simple. He didn't just shake hands with anyone, he shook hands with the likes of "three eyes"



[detective number four turns and looks at her]



D4: "three eyes"?



Number 1: "yes, three-eyes and if i don't help him their not only going to hurt him, their going to hurt his wife and kids...two boys, both still fractions"



D4: "you got that right tootse, three eyes is gonna off him, his wife, his fractions and you". You want my advice, I'd grab them kids and take a one-way train out of this state"



Number 1: And tell his kids they don't have a father anymore



D4 "it's better than the alternative"



Number 1: "Listen, either your going to help me or i'm going by myself...i can take care of myself but i can't let anything happen to those little fractions"



[detective 4 starts daydreaming of those two little fractions]



D4: "Where's he held up at"



Number 1: "Downtown, in the old abandoned parenthesis...are you really going to help us? [big smile]



D4: "I didn't say i was going to help...but i'll make a few phone calls. Now you go on home and call me tomorrow, you hear?"



Inner monologue "i always was a softie when it came to blond hair and high heels"



[Shows detective standing outside of abandoned parenthesis, smoking with a top hat. A gloomy, cloudy night]



{detective peeks through the window and sees



(5x - 3)



x is the brother

3 is “three eyes

5 is a soldier

The minus symbol is a knife



[detective moves to the door of the parenthesis to knock but hears the conversation going on inside”



#3 “Listen...see...i’m tired of waiting for my money to appear. I told you you had 24 hours to get me my money and the times winding down. Tell me why i shouldn’t cut my losses if you know what i mean?”



x “Please, think of my kids, their only fractions”



#3 “It ain’t me who needs to be think of your kids x, it’s you”



x: “Please, i promise i can get it by this time next week”



#3: “You got to be kidden me, you know who i am? I’m done dealing with this guy...time for you talk to the worms”



[detective number four knows what he has to do, he breaks through the parenthesis door and “distributes punishment” to 5x and 3 like so



(4)(5x) - (4)(3)



20x - 12



Latter shows the grave of the detective, with the blond in heels over looking, holding the hands of the little fractions.



Number 1“this man combined his life to save you boys, you remember him in your thoughts ok?”



The End



Tips For Writing Your First Book

Here is a project i've been working on for a few months, see my math downloads section to download the e-book for free

Your Book Now PDF

Parabolas and Water Fountains

The term parabola is often associated with the quadratic equation but students often encounter parabolas much earlier in their studies. For many, a parabola is simply a “u” or an “n” shape; either the top half of a circle or the bottom half. Later, when students start transforming the graphs of functions they begin to notice that parabolas can be wide or narrow in addition to being the shape of a “u” or an “n”. It was Apollonius who gave the shape its name, but it was Galileo who showed that projectiles falling under uniform gravity follow parabolic paths.
We can find parabolas everywhere in nature including water fountains.

What better way to introduce parabolas to your students than to take them to the local park and view the water fountains (If travel is an obstacle, look to your hallway to investigate the drinking fountains).

Potential questions to ask your students:
-Is the shape positive or negative?

-Is it narrow or wider than the graph of x^2

-Where is the vertex?

-Where on the graph is its slope zero?

-Where on the graph is its slope positive?

-Where on the graph is its slope negative?


Extra credit type of questions:

-What is a way to determine the area under the parabola?

-Given two parabolas and two potential equations, which equation is probably the best fit for which graph?


More involved experiment:

-Have your students use yard sticks for your x and y axis and try to find the equation of the parabola.

Math For The Summer: How Long To Fill Up The Pool

End of the year classroom boredom? Take your kids to the town pool or buy a kids pool and calculate some math :)

This exercise is perfect for calculating volumes, adjusting units and calculating the amount of time to fill a volume

p.s. You could also use buckets

Updated Greek Multiplication Table

Here is an updated Greek Multiplication Table of 10 x 10 (notice there is no zeros)

Creating A Greek Multiplication Table

It’s the end of the year and your kids are dreaming of summer. It’s hard enough to keep them in their seat much less quite, right? Time to do something different and hopefully fun. How about learning their multiplication tables (or how to add) in Greek!

Our number symbols is taken from the Arabic number symbols, but here is the Greek equivalent. And here is a site of all Greek Numbers 1-999


Arabic number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Greek numbers :

 

The Greeks “had different symbols for 1,2,3 up to 9, just like us. However, they did not use the same symbols to represent numbers greater than 9. They had a new set of symbols for 10, 20, 30, and so on, and yet another set for 100, 200, 300. This has the disadvantage, like so many of the ancient counting systems, that you eventually ran out of symbols!”

 

The goal of this project is for your students to create a Greek multiplication table like the following helping solidify their own multiplication understanding.

For numbers 1-144 use the following site

Shout Out To "Real Teching Means Real Learning"

http://realteachingmeansreallearning.blogspot.com/

I'm really proud of the work David Martin is doing over at Real Teaching Means Real Learning! Recently instead of having his college kids suffer through another boring test covering trigonometric functions, he decided to pose a challenge. The video above is one of the student results!  

Grasshopper & Proportions Workbook

Seller's Description

The following workbook offers a great way of teaching proportions with the theme of grasshoppers. The initial question asks If a grasshopper were your size how far could he jump?

(Click The Picture To Download The Workbook)

 

I. Initial Question 

II. Lesson about grasshopper

III. Read and Respond section

IV. Math Based on Read and Respond

V. What is a Proportion?

VI Grasshopper Proportion Worksheet

VII. Grasshopper Proportion Word Problems

VIII. How A Grasshopper Jumps

IX. What Are Similar Shapes

X. Similar Shapes of Grasshopper Legs Worksheet 

XI. Similar Shapes of Grasshopper Legs Homework

Running A Lawn Business

Though my profession is teaching mathematics, in the summers, when I'm only teaching part-time at my college, I run a lawn mowing business. Like any business I must calculate my profit by subtracting my costs from my revenue. I think this type of analysis would make a good class project. The goal is simply to getting them thinking about how many variables can go into an equation, though depending on the time you put into the project you could make it a competition or a game or simply a problem. Again, my goal would be to get kids talking in the language of algebra

Ask your students to list all the possible costs that could be incurred in a lawn mowing business and write them on the overhead.

Next, give each student a budget (say $1,000) that they must buy a mower and/or market their business. Next, build an equation to calculate the revenue (R) and costs (C)

P = R - C

C = Fuel, mower, marketing (flyers, adds in the paper, etc)
R = pay per lawn

You could make your profit equation as detailed as you would like, listing as many costs and types of revenue as you would like. You could have kids make flyers for their business, listing the equation on the flyer. Some students may take such knowledge and start their own lawn service. Nevertheless, it's a good introduction to the language and applicability of algebra  

Teaching Area of Irregular Shapes Using Architecture

I love looking at architecture. There's something so therapeutic about the symmetry. 

In this exercise your goal as the educator is to get students thinking about how to take an area of an irregular shape. The shapes that you will use are extremely advanced

So the goal is not for your students to take exact areas but to develop the thought process of how to approach such a problem.

Tell your students that they need to know how much paint to buy to paint the front of this house. How can they figure out the area? Print out the picture and have them spot as many regular shapes as possible in the picture, like so

From here we could get a close approximation of the area of the front of the house if we knew the measurements. 

IronMan Standardized Test Math Problems

Click on the Picture or see Math Downloads section

How Much Does A Speeding Ticket Really Cost

Students often find little use for their equations. Here is an equation that has some more applicability. What is the true costs of a speeding ticket.

It's easy to estimate the initial costs of a ticket by paying the fine, but it takes some math to tell the true costs  of a ticket

Let the total costs of the ticket be represented by the letter C

Let the costs of the actual ticket be represented by the letter T

Let the anual costs of increased insurance be represented by the letters IC

Let the years be represented by ht e letter t

C = T + IC(t)

John gets a ticket for speeding in a school zone. The ticket itself is $110.00. John calls his insurance to notify them and upon doing so figures out that his monthly insurance plan has been raised by $23. What is the total costs of the ticket over the next 10 years?

T= 110

IC = 23 * 12 = 276

t = 10

C = 110 + 276(10)

C = $2,870

Archamendes and Math In The Sand Box

It is believed that Archamendes wrote in the sand before he wrote on paper (papyrus). I've even read that Archamendes carried with him a box of sand at all times offering him the ability to work on mathematics from anywhere. I believe there is merit in this method. I would encourage you to take your students outside before the school year is over, to the nearest sandbox (or my case, mud) and conduct class with a stick.

Viva Honduras!!! Visiting A Mathematics Classroom In Central America

As customary for my vacations i enjoy visiting the schools to witness learning in process. Here in the town of Gracias i set in on a mathematics class for 10th grade boys. 

The class began at 4:30pm in order to allow the teenage students to work in the morning. The uniforms are customary for all public and private schools here in Honduras. Today, in 95 degree weather with no air conditioning and no textbooks (they aren't affordable) we learned matrix addition. 

Hi Wonderful Readers

My family and I will be out of the country for a couple of weeks without much internet. Will post some new ideas soon enough as well as tell you about my upcoming radio show. Please let me know what topics you would be interested in discussing on the show
All the best in education,
Jeremiah Dyke

Extra Credit Assignment Book

More Pics From My Students Extra Credit Assignment

Using Maps to Teach The Real Number System Part 2

Here are pictures of the following 

1) A medium size picture of a world map
2) A picture of the map of Australia 
3) A picture of the map of the United States
4) A picture of the map of the state of New York
5) A picture of the map of The City of New York
6) A picture of the map of Time Square within New York City

Students will cut out each picture paste them to the worksheet labeling each part real, rational, irrational, integer, whole and natural like so. 

The point of this task is to establish the fact that specific numbers can be both

You can download these in the Math downloads section

Operation Rocky--You Vs. The Test! Standardized Test Project

Operation Rocky--You Vs. The Test! First things first, you must hype of this exercise! You have to sell it! More on this below.
The goal of this project is for students to train for their big upcoming fight (the state test). To do this they must go through daily fights via daily 2-4 question quizzes.
Each day you will give a lecture about an upcoming topic for their state test, at the end of the class each student will take a 2-4 question quiz with a picture of the guy they are fighting for that day. At the end of class, you tally of the grades and mark on a poster if the student won or loss with tally marks
How to plan:
You might not have enough time to re-cover every topic on the test, so pick the top 5-10.


How to introduce the project and make it successful


This is huge! Your kids should be pumped to take on these quizzes, how do you do this?

1st Go out and buy the Rocky soundtrack or at least the theme song and play it everyday during this exercise.

2nd Have students come up with their own fight name Mr. "Mountain-do-the-Dew" Dyke!

3rd Have posters made listing each students name and their fight name with two columns wins and losses

4th Each quiz should have a pic of who they are fighting

5th Play Rocky during the quizzes

6th Say corny of cliché things to get them pumped up like "its you vs. the quiz", "you can do this", "let's see what you got"

7th There is a powerpoint in "math downloads"

Finally, just to give you an overall idea, i would walk around the class punching kids in the arm, allowing kids to punch their quizzes, screaming "Are YOU READY!", doing pushups, jogging in place screaming "we won't go down without a fight". For most this is too over the top

One thing i would redo, is to allow rematches for each quiz