Tag: Christmas

  • 3 1/2 Ways to Do Math with Jesus

    3 1/2 Ways to Do Math with Jesus

    I’ve been stumbling over baby Jesuses for a few weeks now. I realized that with three working nativity sets in the house it was time to do a little math with Jesus.

    All of them.

    You can count the bits and pieces.

    Animals, people, buildings – count them for each nativity set and count them up total.

    • How many total Jesuses do you have?
    • How many angels?
    • How many “visitors” does Jesus have?
    • How many sheep? Cows? Donkeys? Camels?
    • How many total animals?

    You can compare the numbers.

    My three nativity sets have varying numbers of characters and structures. It’s curious how some sets include more animals that visitors – and some sets don’t have any animals.

    • Which of your nativity sets have more animals? Which has more people?
    • Which has more buildings (or non-people/non-animal things)?
    • Are there more visitors than animals or more animals than visitors?
    • Arrange the sets in order of least to greatest – people, animals, etc. Are they always in the same order?
    • Is one set bigger or heavier than the others?

    Do some arithmetic.

    Take the opportunity to show how counting and arithmetic are kinda the same thing.

    • If you add up the number of sheep you have with the number of donkeys, how many is that? Is it the same if you group them together and just count them?
    • What if all the shepherds left? Talk about how you can count them, or you subtract the number of shepherds from the total number of visitors.
    • How many nativity sets do you have? Talk about how 3 times that number is the number of wise men you have.

    Do fractions – but only if you must.

    I know many people avoid fractions. I wish I could have avoided it with Math with Jesus. Daughter gave us the opportunity to talk about fractions by breaking the angel (or the “butterfly” as she calls it). Good thing we have Gorilla Tape.

    Where can you find math in your Christmas things?

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  • [50 Word Friday] Math in Christmas Lights

    [50 Word Friday] Math in Christmas Lights

    When looking at Christmas lights with a child, you see things you might never have seen before.

    Lights around a window make a rectangle. Lights that droop might be a parabolic or catenary curve.

    And some people hang their Christmas lights in triangles!

    What shapes are in your Christmas lights?

    This article is a part of the 50 Word Friday series. Learn more about this strange, limited writing style here…

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  • [Wordless Wednesday] Trapezoid Christmas Tree

    [Wordless Wednesday] Trapezoid Christmas Tree

    Trapezoid Christmas Tree
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  • Wrapping Paper – Doing the Math this Season

    Wrapping Paper – Doing the Math this Season

    As you wrap presents this holiday season, take a minute to notice the patterns in the wrapping paper. You might just find some math!

    Christmas Paper

    How does the paper come together in the back? Does it neatly match up, seamlessly? Or is it way off?

    Are you able to scootch things a little so that you can get the paper to line up?

    What happens when you use a different box?

    Is this really math?

    Absolutely!

    Consider wallpaper: it has a pattern that repeats every so many inches. When you put wallpaper in your home it’s important to know how often it repeats so that you can match patterns in the corners and around windows, etc.

    Patterned wrapping paper also repeats. Most people ignore it because they don’t think about matching the patterns in the back when wrapping gifts.

    Unless they are particularly detail oriented, a perfectionist, or want to teach a little bit of math at home while wrapping presents…

    Choose your wrapping paper to match your boxes!

    On this box your wrapping paper would go around 8 1/2 + 4 + 8 1/2 + 4 inches.

    This means the wrapping paper would travel 25 inches before meeting back up with itself. So any wrapping paper that repeats after 5 inches or 25 inches will match back up in the back. Both 5 and 25 are factors of 25 – and that’s math!

    If you wrap the box the other way, instead, like this,

    …the wrapping paper would travel 26 inches. Therefore any patterned wrapping paper that repeated after 2 inches, 13 inches or 26 inches would match in the back perfectly.

    A box whose “wrap around” distance was 30 inches could use any wrapping paper that repeated after 2 inches, 3 inches, 5 inches, 6 inches, 10 inches, 15 inches or 30 inches. All those are factors of 30.

    Choose your boxes to match your wrapping paper!

    Or do it the other way – figure out how frequently your pattern repeats. Any box that has a girth of a multiple of this number can be wrapped perfectly. (Girth is the distance around the box – where you wrap the paper.)

    For instance, if your wrapping paper repeated after 2 1/2 inches, you would look for boxes that have a girth of 2 1/2 inches (a tiny ring box), 5 inches, 7 1/2 inches, 10 inches. All the way up to giant boxes that have a girth of 314 1/2 inches.

    Your turn!

    How often does your favorite wrapping paper repeat? Have you found the perfect box/wrapping paper combination? Share your wrapping paper math discoveries in the comments!

    Box photos by z287marc | Flickr.com | CC BY

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