Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Suggestions/ideas for Math?

I like Zaccaro's Primary Grade Challenge Math. I also like Venn Perplexors and math material from The Critical Thinking Co.

I second the suggestion regarding Penrose the Mathematical Cat. We started reading it last week and it seems like a great fit for DS5 right now.


It makes me wonder if it would work for my mathy DS5. He works on 4th grade level, but I think Descartes' Cove is 6-8th grade. Let me know how it goes. If your son stays with it for a few months I may consider it too.

I stumbled across the BBC's website when another poster mentioned one of the adventure games you can play

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/

DS5 loves the reading/math games listed in the KS1 area

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/

I was a bit surprised by the difficulty of some of the time/clock based games. But you know what, it was good because DS really had to think to answer.

JB

I've been considering Descartes' Cove for my almost-7yo, too. He's doing geometry and loving it right now--we did parallel lines cut by a transversal yesterday, and he got a big kick out of seeing all the congruent and supplementary angles in the "puzzle." Then I read this thread and it made me think that the DC game might be right for him after all...

So please keep us updated on how your DS likes it as the newness wears off, would you, Cathy? Thanks!

I just found this page on Hoagies today:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/puzzle_books.htm#logic

Lots of ideas for puzzles!!!

We also found this during the weekend when I was trying to find cut outs of geometric shapes:

http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games.html

DS gets limited computer time each day. When he's not making "booklets" of Wikipedia printouts he likes playing educational games like these. I think I liked the BBC games better, but there are a few pattern types of games here on PBSKids.

BTW, if anyone has a link to 3D shapes that can be cut out, please post. That is what I was looking for originally. Something like this http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/23dgeometry/index.html but with more shapes.

JB

Search for "nets". I found this: http://www.mathsisfun.com/platonic_solids.html

http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php
I've never actually downloaded the software itself, but you can figure some of them out just by looking at the photos.

Erica

Found another! Just paper models to print out on this one -- no downloading

http://www.korthalsaltes.com/

Erica

I stumbled upon a website that shows you how to fill in the multiplication table without learning all ~120 multiplication facts. Like 4 x 5 = 5 x 4, so you could fill in all those and there was a trick for the 9s columns. I thought it was through Hoagies but I can't find it. Does this ring a bell for anyone? I thought I had saved it but can't find it.

Squirt, was it this article by Dr. Silverman?

http://www.visualspatial.org/articles/mthstrat.pdf

I know the nines trick--

1x9=9
2x9=18
3x9=27
4x9=36
5x9=45
6x9=54
7x9=63
8x9=72
9x9=81
10x9=90

Notice that as you go down the column the tens digits of the answers are counting up and the ones digits are counting down. Also, the sums of the digits in the answers always equal nine, i.e. 7x9=63, 6+3=9. So to get the answer you take one away from seven (7-1=6) to get the tens digit and then the ones digit is whatever you need to add to make nine (6+3=9) so the answer is 63.