I wonder if some "fun" math books would be of use? We have liked Demi's "One Grain of Rice," Anno Mitsumasa's "Anno's Magic Seeds," Kathryn Lasky's "The Librarian who Measured the Earth", Julia Diggins's "String, Straightedge, and Shadow," Theoni Pappas's books (Penrose the Mathematical Cat, etc.), David Schwartz's books (G is for Googol, On Beyond a Million, etc.), Denise Schmandt-Besserat's "The History of Counting," Malba Tahan's "The Man Who Counted," Glory St. John's "How to Count like a Martian," and various other things (oh, and I mustn't forget "The Number Devil" by Hans Magnus Enzensberger!). (Somewhere around here there's a thread where St. Pauli Girl linked to a great list of these kinds of books, and how they could be used in the classroom, if I'm remembering right.) You might also look at Julie Brennan's Living Math site, if this sort of thing is of any interest (www.livingmath.net)

Something Harpo has been enjoying is some of the MEP stuff from the CIMT (I'm horrible with acronyms, but I think it's Mathematics Enhancement Programme from the Centre for Innovative Mathematics Teaching--it's a pilot project run from the University of Plymouth, based on {I think} the Hungarian national curriculum). Some of it is password-protected, but all it takes is an email to them, and they very kindly provide it. Harpo had great fun with the logic stuff from year seven (equivalent to our grade six, I think), as well as the code stuff (on the links page--material developed in concert with the folks at Bletchley Park). I've printed it off, because I don't like the kids staring at screens (personal hangup), but some of the things are interactive and can be done online. Overall, this is mathematics approached quite differently than it often is in North America, and might be worth a look.

I can't usually make links work (bad karma or just ignorance, I'm not sure), but I'll give it a try:
www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

Something I mentioned in another thread might also be a fun project for an advanced math pupil--Harpo really enjoyed some computational linguistics puzzles I turned up a while back. You might give this site a peek and see what you think: www.naclo.cs.cmu.ed/index.php

Goodness, I hope some of those are clickable!

peace
minnie

Edited to add: in re: the password--I explained that I was a homeschooler in Canada, and asked if I might have the password, which they very kindly provided. I should clarify that I don't know what their criteria for giving the password out actually are. I do believe that there's a Yahoo group (which I've not investigated) for people teaching this curriculum, and that the password is also available there, but I don't know this of my own knowledge.

Last edited by minniemarx; 02/23/09 11:10 PM.