Part of Wordless Wednesday…
Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.
Tag: Fibonacci
-
Fibonacci Birthday Party!
I’ve been preparing for months to have K8’s Fibonacci Birthday party. Last Saturday it happened.
We did a lot of preparation.
Here is Judson creating the Fibonacci squares and spiral on our tile floor:
Here is the birthday “cake” I made. It’s a Fibonacci Squares brownie cake!
I ordered these math picture books from Kaplan for the party favors. I put a sweet “thank you for coming to my party” sticker on the inside from K8:
The set up was intricate.
The spread included descriptions of how each thing was related to Fibonacci.
Someone said, “I’ve never been to a grownup’s three year old birthday party before.” Indeed, there were lots of informational pieces.
We even had the Furry Fibonacci Bunnies out!
And there were activities too!
My mom carved potato stamps with all the digits and I had apples cut open so the kids could stamp with them. There were also sea shells to glue on!
We had glue and squares out for kids (and parents) to make their own Fibonacci Squares and Fibonacci Spiral.
Even the grownups had a “craft” to do!
Grownups AND kids had a great time!
I refrained from pointing out the pseudo Cartesian Coordinate plane created by my new grass.
Here’s Wil explaining the Fibonacci Squares to my three moms.
Math presents!
How fun that K8 got some really neat math presents — like this animal pattern blocks from Melissa & Doug.
And we were both excited about the UmiZoomi Preschool Math Kit!
Even the “Thank You” notes use math!
I pulled out the stamps we ordered for K8’s announcements three years ago. Of course postage has gone up since then so we needed to add one!
Do the activities with your kids!
Here are some free downloadable printouts. Use them to play and learn more about Fibonacci.
Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.
Non-disclaimer: We paid for everything at this party. Kaplan gave me a nice discount for the books, though. Thanks, y’all!
Bad-girl confession: Many of the images on the document stands were stolen from various online sources. Since I was using them for personal use, I neglected to give anyone credit. The downloadable documents shared above have legal images, though.You might also like:
-
Beautiful Math
I get sent all sorts of things that claim to show the beauty of numbers. For the most part they show various number theory concepts that make a math mom think, “I wonder why that works.”
This, however, is truly beautiful.
Enjoy it yourself. Show it to your kids. And understand a little more about the theory behind Nature by Numbers here.
Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.
You might also like:
-
Furry Fibonacci Numbers
A strange mixture of birthday party planning, birthday present searching and math magic landed the new #MathShack mascots in my house. Seems the “Furry Fibonaccis” are here to stay.
They are Fibonacci numbers in action!
Notice there is one white bunny (already named Abek). And one is a Fibonacci number.
There are two brown bunnies (yet to be officially named). And two is a Fibonacci number.
And there are three total bunnies, another Fibonacci number.
My friend Lisa Pennington assured me that a fluffy addition would not break the bank. Apparently, she didn’t realize that I would end up with three of these furry cuties.
We’ll see…
It’s not so easy to determine the sex of these three little guys.
Assuming there’s an equal probability of a rabbit giving birth to a male as a female, I have a one in four chance that they won’t be able to reproduce.
Keep your fingers crossed for me!
According to the traditional Fibonacci rabbits explanation, each pair of rabbits can reproduce every month.
Keep your fingers crossed that I get lucky, and we don’t end up with 987 bunnies a year from now!
But they ARE cute!
K8 totally loves them. And they’re a great way to teach caring, responsibility and, well… maybe the facts of life.
And if we do end up with 987 bunnies next year, we’ll have an economics lesson too. After all, I paid $10 for each of these — that could be a significant profit!
Have you ever had bunnies? What do you think’s going to happen with Kate’s Furry Fibonaccis? Share your thoughts in the comments, and on twitter.
You might also like:
-
Fibonacci Birthday Party Preparation — Fun Facts
I’m planning K8’s Fibonacci Birthday Party. And I have some decisions to make.
- Evite or mailed invitations?
- Design my own invitation or use a template?
- Give information about Fibonacci Numbers on the invitation or just let guests figure it out?
In trying to make these decisions, I’ve found a number of resources full of Fibonacci finds and glorious Golden Rectangle goodies. I thought I’d share:
And here’s what I just created myself:
Oh — and I also learned how we get the golden ratio. It’s the number that the ratio of consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence approaches. We call it phi and it’s sort of 1.62.
Cool!
Share your thoughts in the comments or on twitter/x.
You might also like:
-
Birthday Party Fibonacci Style!
This year K8 is turning 3, a Fibonacci number. So we’re having a Fibonacci Birthday Party!
Her birthday parties the previous two years have been non-math. And I’m fairly certain at some point she’ll want to choose her own birthday party theme. So this might be my last chance to do a Fibonacci birthday party.
Fibonacci Birthday Party Decorations
Spiral streamers, pinecones, whole pineapples and sunflowers will adorn the house.
We’ll have blue painter’s tape outlining the spiral on the tiles of the floor. And we’ll each wear a fun Fibonacci t-shirt!
Birthday Party Foods
We’ll have bananas, apples and pineapples as healthy snacks for the kids. And I’ll likely do an arrangement of Cheez-its glued down with peanut butter. Of course there’ll be plenty of free floating Cheez-its too!
For the grownups, we’ll have broccoli and cauliflower along with cucumbers.
If we serve a meal, we’ll do lasagna with Fibonacci rectangles outlined in spinach fettuccine noodles!
Party Favors
I’ll buy a bunch of Fibonacci paperback children’s books, including Rabbits Rabbits Everywhere and Wild Fibonacci. I’ll print some fun stickers to put on them that read
And those will be the party favors!
Fibonacci Birthday Party Gimmicks
We’ll play some games, including Fibonacci Hopscotch (as suggested by @mathhombre). The adults can play, “What is My Fibonacci Number?” based on the popular party game, Who Am I?
And the best part – we’ll have live rabbits for the kids to pet!
What do you think?
Have you ever given a Fibonacci Birthday Party? or a math party? Do you have any other ideas to make this awesome?
Please share via twitter or in the comments!
You might also like:
-
Math Picture Book – Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci
This is part of the Teaching Math with Picture Books series.
After publishing my recommendation of You Can Count on Monsters, a reader emailed an equally compelling suggestion: Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, by Joseph D’Agnese.
Armed with my new Barnes & Noble membership card, I scurried down to the bookstore to get it.
It’s not just math.
Intertwined in this tale of the great mathematician Fibonacci, are fun historical facts and a coming of age story.
I learned the approximate time Arabic numerals started making their way to Italy and when the Leaning Tower was built.
D’Agnese has Fibonacci narrate the story. Through his eyes we see the difficulties of a smart boy with moxie. He struggles, but doesn’t let the ridicule interrupt his dreams.
And there’s plenty of math, too!
Of course no picture book on Fibonacci would be complete without the rabbits. Illustrator John O’Brien doesn’t disappoint:
And there’s math filtered in the images all over the place. Here’s an obvious one:
Brilliantly, they’ve included a “Can you find…” page at the back to encourage and support children and parents in finding the beautiful countables.
They even offer ways to find math in your own kitchen and backyard!
Your turn…
Go grab Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci at your library or bookstore. Enjoy it alone or with kids – it’s great either way.
And do share your thoughts in the comments and on twitter.
P.S. Writing this inspired me to think of a way to remember how to spell Fibonacci. Acci & Fred were friends until one day bad Fred told a Fib On Acci.
Related articles
-
Wordless Wednesday: Fibonacci Baskets
I rarely do Wordless Wednesday, but some photos just lend themselves to it!
These are from IKEA.
In case you’ve not yet taught the Fibonacci Sequence, it starts with 1, 1 and then each next number is the sum of the previous two numbers:
- Next is 1 + 1 = 2
- Then 1 + 2 = 3
- Then 2 +3 = 5, etc.
How about some questions…
- How many sets do I need for the next number? (A set from Ikea has 1, 2, and 3 in it.)
- How many sets do I need for each number after that?
- Is there a pattern? Like for the 12th number I need 12-2=10 sets and for the 17th number I need 17-2=15 sets?
Do you have more questions? Or answers? Share in the comments.
(150 words later my headline is pretty much wrong, huh?)
Related articles