Color-by-Number Math

Color-by-number! With my writing, I have been playing around with ways to make the answer to a math problem something that is more interactive. Color by number is one thing that I stumbled upon last year, and I think it’s got some mad potential for older learners. (I freely admit that I am not the first teacher to create this. There are lots of TPT resources and freebies online, but they are generally reserved for younger grades and practicing basic operations. This resource I built out for my 8th graders practicing equations. The image is from a google image search and not my own):

The equations that students must solve are presented on the left. Once they solve an equation, they can color in the spaces with the corresponding color. (For example, the solution to 63=3(1-4n) is -5, so any space with a -5 on it should get colored in yellow.)

I used it as a part of a review project after we had spent a couple weeks solving equations. I put out a big bowl of colored pencils and let them dig in. took about 35 minutes to complete.

I also spent a two days where students built their own color by number math art. I gave parameters for the types of problems that they used, and asked them to build something creative. Some were better than others, but I absolutely need to share this color by number piece from Luz, cuz it rips.

It’s Pluto with some of the members of k-pop band BTS. Why are they all together? Ask Luz.

I’ve been sitting on this post for a WHILE because it is going to be a big part of my new Choose Your Own Adventure book, Fraction Action: Double Feature, and I didn’t want you vultures to steal all my good ideas 😉

Here is a downloadable pdf version of the “equations workshop” sheet shown above, and it has the problems in bigger boxes to be printed on the back.

color-by-number Download

Here is the powerpoint version if you want to add math that works better with your students! Enjoy!

color-by-number-slides Download

Exponent Operation

I made this little operation application a few years ago in Seattle. It was fun, and I used it every year for practicing exponent rules, but I never ended up building other stuff for other units. It would be very easy to do so.

WARNING: this game requires the game operation, which has lots of little pieces, and batteries. This game is fun, but not something that I think scales very well to a class of more than 12 or 15 kids.

Anyway, you group kids, and have them take turns playing the game operation. If they successfully remove a piece from the board, the OTHER students must solve the corresponding problem from the sheet below.

I tried to attach the harder problems to the harder pieces from the gameboard to remove. There is also an answer key in the documents below that I printed out in a different color so kids could check their work.

Scrub up! It’s surgery time!

operation-pdf Download

editable operation-ppt Download

Open Middle VERSUS

Many of you have probably used Robert Kaplinsky and Nanette Johnson’s wonderful Open Middle math problems. There are great problems and resources for running these problems with students on the open middle website and in Robert’s book.

The best ones are on their site, but I have made a few that I shared on my twitter.

The idea I had last week was to think about “playing” this problem against someone else. OPEN MIDDLE VERSUS.

I haven’t tried anything like this with students yet, but I think it could be a fun extra layer. Not only do students need to figure out which digits they need to create a large value for x (9, 8 and 1) but they need to figure out how the numbers play together, and which one is the most important to creating a big value for x. I think the 1 is most important, so maybe this version of this problem would drive a better discussion:

I think it could lead to some fun discussions in class, and you could use this for any type of open middle problem that uses 3 or 4 numbers:

Again, 1 is going to be very important. Is there a reason why?

Featured

The Dregg Disaster

I wrote a book!

We have the story edits finalized and it is officially available for pre-order, which is pretty crazy. I WROTE A BOOK! It will be officially available sometime this year (looking like October), and I hope that my vision for this book translates to a fun, rigorous, Algebra 1 review. I am filled with so many emotions! I’m thrilled to share this vision of gamified math with readers, and I am so excited to actually hold something in my hand after the countless hours and frustrations that it took to put all the pieces of this project together. It’s been two and a half years since I first started working on this book as a side-project to my teaching job, which is a long time.

Enough time -in fact- to get engaged, cut my hair into a mullet, change jobs and move to a new country.

Most of all though, I cannot wait to see how students connect with it. I hope that students that already love math will find a book of puzzles that speaks a language that they understand. I hope that reluctant math learners will find a story that motivates them to learn new things.

Here’s a link to the book on the CYOA website, and it’s also on Amazon, if you want to help Bezos go back to space:

I don’t think that there has ever been a book quite like this one, so I made a few FAQ’s

Q: Is it a math book, or is it a Choose Your Own Adventure book?

A: Yes? Both. It has pictures, it has a silly adventure narrative with an evil corporation, talking animals, laser robots, shrink rays and mysterious portals. It also has Algebra-1 level math problems (and a free workbook download where kids can show their work and get more practice on each type of math problem that shows up in the story).

Here is a picture of what we are working with on the first page:

As you can see, there is a narrative section, and below that, a math problem

Students need to solve the math problem, and the the answer is the page where the story continues. The solution on this page is 13, so you would turn to page 13 to continue reading. Students will need to practice their algebra 1 skills to navigate through the book.

Q: ??? What ???

A: This book works like a normal CYOA book, with math as the connective tissue. The page numbers are the answers to the problems in the book. Read some story. Solve a math problem. Continue to a new page.

It is broken into four chapters. Each chapter includes death endings and choices that the reader will need to make to take on the nefarious Dregg Corporation. In addition, the types of math problems change from chapter to chapter. The first chapter focuses on equations, the second focuses on slope and lines, the third is quadratics, and the fourth is data and frequency tables. Every pathway through each chapter hits the same sequence of math problems, regardless of choices made by the reader.

Or maybe you die. It’s a CYOA book.

Every pathway follows the exact same sequence of math standards, but contains different story choices. The answer to each problem leads you to the next page in the story. New page, new story and new math skill.

Q: What if I get stuck?

A: Each chapter has an “Adventure Advice” section that explains the problem types found in each chapter, and serves as an answer key. If you don’t understand every problem type in the book, that’s okay! This is intended as a learning resource.

THANK YOUS. I did not do this alone.

Thanks to Shannon, Rachel, Melissa and Julie for helping this book take shape. I am very grateful to Shannon in particular for seeing value in this idea, and helping it to reach the finish line. Thanks too to my math brother, Chris Bakke for helping pick the math standards, and create some of the math problems. I still haven’t seen most of the art, but thanks too to the artists. Eoin Coveney did the cover, and Maria Pesado did all the illustrations inside the book, AND she re-drew all the math problems so that they pop. I hope that you like what we have been able to create!

Double Decker Dice

I wanted to share a quick routine that I have been using in my classroom the last couple of years. I found these funky dice at a stand at NCTM in Seattle three or four years ago. Each big die has a smaller one inside. I bought them without really knowing how I was going to use them.

(They are also available on amazon)

Over the last few years, I have started using them more and more as a way to quickly randomize problem sets in class. I created a slide template, and I plop in numbers based on the skill that we are working on. It looks like this:

The slide above would be displayed for the kids to see. Students roll the dice, and they generate a math problem based on the values on the dice. So a roll of 4 on the big dice and 2 on the little dice would generate a problem that reads 37/11. This particular slide was to practice reducing improper fractions, but the attached powerpoint file has a bunch of other problem sets as well.

I like this routine for a few reasons. Rolling dice automatically hooks kids. Dice are fun, and they seem to get started quicker when they have to do the small task of finding and writing down their problem. I also like this routine because it shows that the numbers work together the same way, no matter which values they roll. There is no magic to the numbers. They are learning a process or math idea that works no matter what numbers the dice ask them to use.

Here are some resources.

double-decker-dice Download

I have created a bunch of these slides for my Algebra 1, Geometry and Pre-Algebra classes, and I slapped them all together into this powerpoint. The skills included here: improper fractions, percent change, graphing linear inequalities, distance formula, adding integers, subtracting polynomials, 2 step equations, equation of a line through two points, solving formulas for a new variable, solving proportions, missing angle in a triangle and surface area of a cylinder.