Magnetic Blocks

Here's another favorite magnetic puzzle, or play thing. It has that great "pop into place" feel as the pieces go together. There are 24 identical pieces that make a cube and plenty of other interesting shapes. Fooling around with it gives people mathematical insights, and under a teacher's guidance with a little questioning it can be turned into a great lesson in area, perimeter, and volume, angles and more. But for the most part it's just fun. It's called Mag-Blocks.

PhysLink the Science eStore carry's the 24 piece set ($14.99). This looks like a great place to get interesting learning things for home or classroom.

Discount School Supply offers a double 48 piece set $21.95 - that's two cubes. What a deal! Check it out! Whoa! As of 10/2/07 the 48 piece set was on sale for $17.95 - that's a really good deal. However the colors changed and it's hard to tell if the pieces are the same size. But I'm gettin' one now.

Math Wonders with Seven Pieces

Now that I've posted about Tangrams I find myself pondering why they're so amazing. Just think, seven simple pieces that hold a myriad of geometric relationships such that they can be combined to create all the shapes above. And they're not easy. Just give it a try. Tangrams

Or better yet, sit with a young person and work on it together. Talk about what your brain is thinking as you try to use the seven pieces to make the different shapes. You could ask questions like: Which of the shapes has the greatest perimeter? Which shape has the greatest area? How could you design a shape with the pieces that has the maximum perimeter, or the maximum area?

Tangrams - Geometric Brain Sharpener

I just love Tangrams. I'm not that great at doing them but I love to watch my mind think as I work out a solution. The shape of "the sitting man" for instance seems easy because you know right off where two of the pieces go just by looking at the shape. So there are only 5 other pieces to place. But as you do it you discover that getting those large triangles in place can be tricky, and if you listen to your mind thinking about the options you'll find it's fascinating to see your strategies of looking at the areas of pieces, and lengths of sides, and ways that pieces could fit together to fill a certain space. And for kids - if we can get them to be aware of their thinking I believe there will be a great deal of transfer to all kinds of problems related to area, distance, angles, triangles and more. Play with it and see what you think. Try Interactive Tangrams

Inspiration for Math Education

In light of NCLB and the standards movement, teachers are so pressed to raise test scores that it's easy to forget some of the intriguing, fun, math things we used to have time for in the "good old days". So this blog will help remind us of some of the conversations, resources, and really "cool things" that inspire math learning.

Like for instance. I just came across a very elegant simple puzzle, called Ball of Whacks - a 30-sided polyhedra made up of 30 identical magnetic pieces that just pop into place. You've got to feel it to believe it.
Check it out. Here's a little movie of it - Ball of Whacks