Category: Products

  • Great Gift Wrap Up — Math Gifts

    Great Gift Wrap Up — Math Gifts

    Looking for some great gifts? Look no further!

    Here is a collection of games, toys, books and other goodies — all educational.

    For each, there’s a link where you can buy it (some are affiliate links) and most have reviews or other discussions of the product.

    Happy holidays!

    Games

    Roll & Play

    Billed as “Your Child’s First Game,” this helps the little ones understand game play. Non-competitive, but fun. All activities are marked on the cards with pictures as well as words, so they are easily deciphered by the non-readers of the family.

    Ages: 18 months and up
    Players: 2 or more
    Review: Review of ThinkFun’s Roll & Play Toddler Game
    Cost: $19.99 on Amazon

    Quoridor

    Moving pawns or putting up fences. Deceptively simple. Ridiculously challenging after you and a friend have played 5 times. Which will your strategy be?

    Ages: Ages 8 and up
    Players: 2 to 4
    Review: Coming soon!
    Cost: $29.95 on Amazon

    Sumology

    Helps children build equations and do advanced math using the basic operators. Players place their tiles in crossword fashion either horizontally or vertically to create valid equations.

    Ages: 8 and up
    Players: 2 to 6
    Review: Long Division with Sumology Number Tiles
    Cost: $40.00 on Amazon

    Rush Hour Traffic Jam Game

    Playing Rush Hour helps build sequential thinking, reasoning and planning skills. Challenges range from beginner to expert, so everyone in the family will enjoy it! Rush Hour can be played at home or on-the-go — perfect for on road trips, airplane rides or physician waiting rooms.

    Ages: 8 and up
    Players: 1
    Review: Rush Hour Traffic Jam Game
    Cost: $17.78 on Amazon

    Toys

    Magna-Tiles

    These tactile, colorful translucent Magna-Tiles stick to each other for fun 3D exploration or practicing basic shapes and colors. Magna-Tiles develops patterning, shape recognition, building and motor skills. They store nicely on the refrigerator too!

    Ages: 1 and up
    Review: Magna-Tiles — Must-Have Magnetic Shapes
    Cost: $51.50 on Amazon

    Animal Pattern Blocks

    Complete the colorful animal pictures with geometric shapes. The 47 geometric shapes come in a rainbow of bright colors, and can also be used outside of the boards for counting, sorting and original designs. Great for developing shape and color recognition, fine motor skills and language skills!

    Ages: 3 and up
    Review: Melissa & Doug’s Animal Pattern Blocks Set
    Cost: $24.95 on Amazon

    Books

    There are so many! Click here to see a list of all the math picture books I’ve reviewed so far. Here are my two favorite ones:

    One Grain of Rice

    Exotic, beautiful, and instructive, this “mathematical folktale” by author-illustrator Demi emerged from her love of India. This retelling of the classing “doubling” story is about Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days.

    Ages: 3 and up
    Review: Math Picture Book: One Grain of Rice
    Cost: $14.95 on Amazon

    You Can Count on Monsters

    You Can Count on Monsters

    This special counting book visually explores the concepts of factoring and the role of prime and composite numbers. The playful and colorful monsters are designed to give children (and even older audiences) an intuitive understanding of the building blocks of numbers and the basics of multiplication.

    Ages: 8 and up
    Review: Prime Numbers Are Fun to Learn!
    Cost: $16.47 on Amazon

    Something for you…

    And after all this shopping for your kids, make sure you get some number jewelry for yourself!

    Let me know how your math shopping goes!

    Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.

  • The Butler Stick — A New Use for an Old Tool

    The Butler Stick — A New Use for an Old Tool

    I’m at the Domestic Estate Manager’s Association Convention this weekend with Husband and I’ve discovered a marvelous math tool. It’s called “The Butler Stick” and it’s used by butlers and other domestic service personel — mostly.

    But there’s a lot of math in it — enough to integrate The Butler Stick into your world as another learning tool.

    On one side it’s a yardstick.

    The Butler Stick has thirty six fun inches to measure just about anything. It’s foldable, though, so you can store it like a standard ruler.

    You can show an equilateral triangle with it, as well play with various angles.

    On the other side it’s a number line!

    Okay, so it’s missing the negative signs on the left, but those are easily added with a sharpie.

    The Butler Stick is typically used to set a table. The plate is centered at zero, and from there you can symmetrically lay out the flatware and other bits.

    You can use it to teach proper place setting (something every child should know) and inject some math into dinnertime!

    You can also use it to create other things of symmetry. Use it to have fun with math during art lessons.

    Treat your family to one!

    They sell The Butler Stick at Charles MacPhearson’s site, but you have to call to order it (416-369-1146). It’s not cheap, at $24.95, but it’s well made and looks like it would take a beating from a few children. (But not give a beating!)

    Or you could try it out for a while by making your own. Use some some cardboard and rivets and you’ll be able to see the value of it. It’s a crude version, but the math’s the same.

    Once you see how cool it is, you’ll be calling them up — just like me!

    Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.

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  • The QAMA Calculator — The One Calculator You Shouldn't Burn!

    The QAMA Calculator — The One Calculator You Shouldn't Burn!

    It’s no secret that I’m an opponent of calculators. In fact, I recently suggested to readers of 12Most.com that they burn their calculators!

    But there is one calculator that isn’t burn-worthy.

    The QAMA Calculator requires the user to input a reasonable approximation before it churns out an exact answer.

    So if you asked your QAMA Calculator to find the square root of 5, it would ask you first what \(\sqrt{5}\) is really close to. Like this:

    That’s annoying!

    Okay, maybe. If you need the calculator to do some quick work (the real reason to use a calculator), then you don’t need the darn thing quizzing you about an approximation.

    But the QAMA Calculator people thought of everything. You can turn off that feature!

    But then the kids will cheat!

    Ah! You would think so. But check out what it does when you turn the feature off:

    So what do you think? Will you get a QAMA Calculator? (It’s only about $25 after shipping & handling.) Will you let your kids use it?

    P.S. I paid full price for it — it’s not expensive and it’s a crazy brilliant idea, so I went for it.

    Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.

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  • Great Finds at CAMT12

    Great Finds at CAMT12

    Last week, Wil and I were at the Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching. We learned so much and had a great time – and found tons of neat stuff!

    I walked away with so much knowledge and quite a few great products – and Wil ended up with some too. Here are our fun finds and great product choices – look for more information on each soon!

    The MathRack

    The MathRack is an amazing product built by even more amazing folks. They started in their own home, and they still assemble the MathRack by hand in their garage.

    I know I should share a photo of the product, but Scott Rule, owner, founder, chief cook and bottle washer of MathRack, is such a sweetheart – and has worked so hard on the product – I couldn’t resist including this fun photo of us!

    The Ultimate Puzzle

    Anette offered a free Ultimate Puzzle to anyone who could solve it in less than 5 minutes. Both Wil and I tried our hand at this puzzle developed in Estonia.

    There are over a bazillion million hundred billion ways this thing can go together – and only 200 of them will work!

    Alas, I ended up buying one of them.

    Dinah Zike’s Alphabet Tabbed WrapAround

    Last week I put alphabet tabs on a Moleskine book to help me teach K8 to read. Then I found Dinah Zike’s Alphabet Tabbed WrapAround. It’s amazing and I can’t wait to use it!

    Flashdisc – Wheel of Facts

    The Flashdiscs are a nifty little self-checking set of fact helpers. They come in both addition/subtraction and multiplication/division.

    Luckily Wil could actually use a set of these with his tutoring clients — I got him to pay for it!

    Math Olympiads

    Math Olympiads is a monthly competitive math fun for classroom schoolers and homeschoolers. Seems very cost effective and lots of fun for kids of all ages.

    Tons of ideas!

    We learned about numeracy and using “Number of the Day” exercises from two fabulous teachers from Conroe ISD. We learned great ways to use the MathRack from the beautiful and awesome Christina Tondevold.

    We even got some great giveaways from Kaplan Elementary and Frog Publications that we’ll be dissecting so you can use them at home (they’re currently only priced for full classrooms).

    So look for detailed articles on these and other great math learning ideas coming soon. I’m kinda bubbly inside from all I have to write on.

    … and next week is the Homeschool Convention!

    Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.

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