petmoosie | Entries tagged with math

Long summer days. With children.

Mrmoosie's family is visiting, so we are having a lot of fun, but getting totally off schedule.

I spent three hours today on a practice test for chemistry. I actually did quite well, so I am feeling more confident. It was long and exhausting, however.

Not really sure how to take logarithms without a table of them or a calculator. Is this something I learned in math, or never learned? I do remember using the tables of logarithms.

Current Mood: tired

Only 3 more hours to go! The 2011-2012 school year (3rd grade for Emily) will end tomorrow with a half-day. So much has been happening.

I intend never to be on quite as many PTA committees ever again. Some days (weeks), it seemed like I was in the school all day, every day.

I am turning over the foreign language committee to someone else. It will be advertised many many times probably before someone picks it up. But, as long as someone picks it up early in the school year, it will still work out. Emily is unlikely to do Spanish next year (grade 4) and it seems she will have a built-in conflict in grade 5.

Emily is being advanced far and fast in math, and she is enjoying it a huge amount. Fourth grade, she will be taking Math 6 with a group of 5th graders. In fifth grade, she will go over to the local middle school for math before the day begins at her elementary school (this would conflict with Spanish if it continues to be offered at the same time at the elementary school).

Emily and I are going to do a lot of Spanish work over the summer.

Current Mood: chipper

I'm feeling unusually cold today. I suspect it will turn out to be a fever.

long division. Emily is learning long division in math at school. So far, so crazy. She and her friend are not sure where on the paper any of the numbers go.

One of my outdoor peas is coming up. And I finally see something green in one of my peppers. I hope it is a pepper sprout and not mold.

My county is asking for feedback on their math curriculum.

One thing is asking what experiences my child has had that have helped her learn math. Well, dice-based games, such as Sorry, Settlers of Catan, Monopoly and other games with a lot of parts, are really helpful. I think that indoor recess should be game time or maybe an after-school club. The other really useful thing is pretend shopping with real money.

One experience that has really not helped is the state quarters thing. It's annoying that the same value of money can look so different.

Not that my county can do anything about the state quarters (or the different nickels, either). And the delay in learning about the quarter wasn't much.

Current Mood: calm

an infinite number of peptide hormones involved in the digestive system

The Math Geek Says: That's not possible. There'd have to be no upper bound on the number of atoms in the hormone. In a person who weighs, say, 100 kg, there are no more than 6.022*10²⁸ atoms (that's the number if they were all hydrogen atoms); and there can't be more atoms in the hormone than there are in the entire body.

Now, granted, the only upper bound I can place on the number of hormones (without knowing more about their structure) is (6.022*10²⁸)!, which certainly qualifies as Lots. But it's still finite. :-)" from metageek 's comment at least a year ago.

Possible hormones in the digestive system are peptide hormones so they are composed of any of 20 amino acids, in a chain of length 3 to 30 amino acids long. So a mathematical expression for that would be:

20^3 +20^4 +20^5 + ... + 20^30, where the ... is terms of 20^n for n=6 to 29. Is there any compact way to express this? Is there a way of doing this in a shorter way?

Current Mood: requesting

T is watching TV with Emily. I am thinking about my students. And other random educational stuff.

I was thinking of different games that used mathematical skills.
Monopoly, The Numbers Race, Hearts (card game), Bridge (card game), Legos (spatial skills), Poker (card game), Backgammon, toy cash register
Some of these are much more expensive, others require more from the children in terms of cooperative play and organization (particularly the cash register).

Emily's school could use more activities for indoor recess days, and there are always complaints that the children aren't learning enough math.

Current Mood: calm

I am still waiting for Emily's report card to arrive in the mail. If she had been healthy, we would have had it 10 days ago.

She has a homework packet of activities in reading and math. So far, she has done 3 of the math activities and none of the reading activities. That's probably going to be the pattern for the whole summer.

Current Mood: calm

No, but the math wars are hard.

ashtalet , I believe that you have a relative commanding a division (or at least a subtraction :-) ) in the math wars?

It's late, I'm not going to play (and post) about it more tonight. But I am frustrated with the curriculum as I understand it in our school.

Current Mood: angry

Someone else's rant. It is the math program in my school district. I think that I should be able to help with some of the issues that tend to occur. For one thing, keeping a record of her work for the year should help in reviewing materials and keeping her fresh on some of the things that she learned a year ago.

Everyday Math is a spiraling curriculum, so the same ideas are tackled at the same time of year in all grade levels. So there is a geometry unit, a measuring unit, an adding unit and some others. Advanced students don't like it because they never get deeply into a unit and it feels like it is all review. Struggling students don't like it because they never spend long enough on a unit to master it.

Emily is on the geometry (shape) section. So I had to pull out a picture (from the air) of a certain interestingly-shaped building :-). We drove by it on the way back from dinner with

starstraf 's sweetie.

Current Mood: sad

I have been reading many teacher blogs lately. In the blogosphere, you can get stuck on one type of blog and keep reading blogs of that type, by following someone's blogroll. I don't know how to add links in livejournal, but

rose1thorn has links, so I know that it is possible.

Thinking of putting the distributive property earlier in the review. Then the students might actually feel that it is important.

Current Mood: thoughtful

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The days are long and the years are short

One more long day

Entries tagged with math

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