Welcome to the 181st Playful Math Carnival.
Before we travel around the blog-o-sphere and enjoy the offerings of May and June, I thought we might spend some time reflecting on what makes the number 181 so special.
The symmetry of the number creates what is known as a palindromic number. These number can be reversed and still read the same. 181 is also a strobogrammatic number, which is a number that can be rotated 180 degrees and still look the same. In other words, the number will read the same right way up and upside down. 181 is also a prime number.
Reflection, Translation, Rotation and Symmetry Fun
181 is a great number to kick off an investigation for your math journals… How many plaindromic 3-digit numbers can you find? How many are primes? What about strobogrammatic 3-digit numbers? How many more can you find?
This could lead to a whole exploration of geometric translations! If you decide to travel into the world of reflection, translation, rotation and symmetry here are some great math resources for you to consider.
The Toy Theater has a great drawing tool which lets kids see the mirror image of the digital image they draw.
nRich math encourages your students to explore the effect of reflecting in two parallel mirror lines.
The House of Math explains Mirror symmetry in mathematics.
Mrs E Teaches Math give a great logo project for investigating reflected translations in the world around us.
Math is Fun gives example and diagrams showing reflected symmetry.
You can explore symmetry with the ideas that I’ve posted for Februarys symmetry exploration.
Symmetry in Nature | Math Curious has playful ideas to add to your symmetry study.
Brittany Ensminger has some free transformation worksheets over at TPT. You can also find free worksheets at Math Salamanders.
You can combine your math with some art by completing Monet: Reflections on the Seine River by Painted Paper Art.
Now, let’s head around the blog world to see what fun offerings were new in May/June…
Blog-o-sphere offerings
My favourite math lessons always involve art, so I loved Math Hombres Star Patterns – a Mathart lesson.
ABAKCUS introduces us to Richard Feynman and Ode to a Flower. Because looking deeply doesn’t destroy but enhance beauty, right?
Fractal Kitty gives us a series of guided inquiries into math. Once again, her offerings are simple enough to do with your children and challenging enough to push them and you to think deeply.
Math Mama writes give us Infinitesimal Land, Or How Infinitesimals Make Calculus Proofs More Natural.
The Beauty of Play explains how to explore number bases while practicing exponents, place value, division, multiplication and critical thinking.
Have you used sliding rulers/number lines before? At Sine of the Times you can see how this is a helpful tool to model addition and subtraction.
Over at Steve Wyborney’s blog you can find great math games and activities to bring some playful fun to your lessons. Our favourite is still SPLAT!
If you feel like playing with numbers and inequality, these Futoshiki 4×4 Puzzles from M+A+T+H=Love are a great addition to your math investigations.
Math Curious gives us some history along with our math in the latest post The Incan Quipu: Ancient Place Value Code in Knots
Math for Love has a new board game for you to print and play called Five Flags Peak.
Right Start Mathematics gives us a great list of games to play with our kids.
Five Twelve Thirteen discusses Fuzzy Math, Math for the sake of math, and how to include it into your math teaching.
Math Coach’s Corner tells us that letting your kids write their own math word problems works.
And lastly, Kristin Coldwell writes Maths in a minute: Hypthesis testing over at Plus Maths.
The last Carnival, Number 180, can be found with Math Hombre. Denise is looking for more people to host these carnivals so if you love playing with math and would like to join the fun, jump over to her page and let her know that you’d like to have a Carnival visit your blog!
If you are looking for some math for your highschoolers, or for yourself try the 238th Carnival of Mathematics over at Fractal Kitty.
You will find the Images in this blog post are sourced from Canva: Visual Suite for Everyone
Still looking for some fun math to add to your learning? Have you tried our mini book units? Each unit is packed with learning, covering English, Math, Science, Geography and Art. For just $2AU you get the downloadable PDF file with over 20 pages of activities, crafts and learning ideas. (Book is not included)
Leave a Reply