Math club/circle that's easy to host?

[4KookieKids]

Does anyone with experience in creating a math club/math circle want to talk with me about what they did? I'm not thinking of something for silicone valley kiddos or anything. My community just doesn't have much math enrichment, and I've been approached numerous times to see if I would be interested in doing something. I guess I talk about math being fun a bit too much....

At any rate, I'd like ideas on having some sort of biweekly (?) math club sort of meeting where we look at fun topics and consider interesting topics that are still accessible to elementary schoolers. A few years ago I taught a bunch of 6-10 year olds some graph theory and we talked about Eulerian and Hamiltonian circuits, along with brief ideas of the proof of when Eulerian circuits exist and the somewhat mind-blowing idea (for them, at least! :D) that even a computer doesn't really have a "good" (efficient) way of finding the least-cost Hamiltonian circuit on an edge-weighted graph, as well as the five and four color theorems of coloring maps. 

 

I had a lot of fun, my kid had a lot of fun, but it was clear by the end that maybe the other moms hadn't really read my class description and were more just looking for something to help their struggling student learn their math facts better... Not exactly what I had in mind... Then I tried to organize a Math Kangaroo two years in a row, and not a single person in my community expressed the slightest interest (not even the folks who are interested in a math club??). Given that somewhat disappointing turn, I'm not sure how much I have in me to invest in making some sort of stellar math club...

 

I have plenty of topic ideas: cryptography is always straight-forward and well-liked, coding (e.g., ISBNs, CCs, other error correcting codes), number theory (prime number theorem vs twin prime conjecture, other kinds of cool primes), more on graph theory and/or combinatorics (kids always seem to like Pascal's triangle and its generalizations), etc. 

 

But I'm not really sure how to do this without putting an awful lot of work into it. I'd like it to be interesting to accelerated, math-loving kids, while still accessible to non-accelerated kids. I'm just in the brainstorming stages, I guess, because I haven't even decided whether or not to move forward. I was hoping some advice from the hive might help me decide if this is something I actually want to offer or not. ?

[Targhee]

I hosted two math circles, and had my kids participating in a 3rd (professional) circle.  My circles were for two different age groups (5-7 and 8-12).  We meet weekly but at that rate I was only good for about 8 months and burned out. The professionally run one met twice a month at a local frozen yogurt shop at 10 AM (a time they normally didn't have many customers and of course all the kids gave them business).  I've actually been thinking of starting another (or two) where we live now.

I kept topics non-computational or at least minimal computations (hole number multiplication is about the hardest calculating we did).  I am not a mathematician so I used lots of outside resources - two books from Math Circles library https://bookstore.ams.org/MCL, two books from Natural Math https://naturalmath.com/goods/, materials from two workshops at Natural Math, some Martin Gardner problems, activities from the Family Math books, and a few ideas from Math curricula ( Beast Academy, RightStart, MEP). It was great fun.  For the 8-12 year olds I would have an interesting problem or activity ready for them to start working on upon arrival.  We would shelve it for a while and allow volunteers to come up and share solutions to the take home problem set (usually 5-10 problems) -.this was my favorite part because it really got them to think hard about their reasoning in order to be able to share it.  Then we would talk about the intro problem/activity - which was the topic for the day.  We would usually have another game or activity related to the topic for the day, and then a game or two to fill up the time.  I'd go over each problem in the problem set for the next week to make sure they understood the premises.

For the younger kids we had no take home problem sets - everything was during Math circle - but I did give them lots of opportunities to share ideas/solutions.  I used lots of games, both ones you buy and ones that didn't need a box, and children's lit, and manipulatives.  It was really mire a math enrichment than a circle.

 

HTH

[desertflower]

In my math club I teach 5 yos.  I use these books.  https://smile.amazon.com/Shapes-Math-Science-Nature-Triangles/dp/1771381248/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1525754889&sr=1-1&keywords=shapes%2C+math+and+nature

and https://smile.amazon.com/Navigating-Discrete-Mathematics-Prekindergarten-Grade-Navigations/dp/0873536061/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1525754954&sr=1-2&keywords=navigating+through+discrete+mathematics

I believe even 6-8 year olds can benefit from these books. 

I like the first book because it has a lot of hands on projects.  It also explains why or how these shapes were used or is used today.  I'm only halfway through the book. 

I like the second book too.  It has hands on ideas too.  More of a discovery method. 

hth.

[4KookieKids]

On 5/7/2018 at 10:57 PM, Targhee said:

I kept topics non-computational or at least minimal computations (hole number multiplication is about the hardest calculating we did).  I am not a mathematician so I used lots of outside resources - two books from Math Circles library https://bookstore.ams.org/MCL, two books from Natural Math https://naturalmath.com/goods/, materials from two workshops at Natural Math, some Martin Gardner problems, activities from the Family Math books, and a few ideas from Math curricula ( Beast Academy, RightStart, MEP). It was great fun.  For the 8-12 year olds I would have an interesting problem or activity ready for them to start working on upon arrival.  We would shelve it for a while and allow volunteers to come up and share solutions to the take home problem set (usually 5-10 problems) -.this was my favorite part because it really got them to think hard about their reasoning in order to be able to share it.  Then we would talk about the intro problem/activity - which was the topic for the day.  We would usually have another game or activity related to the topic for the day, and then a game or two to fill up the time.  I'd go over each problem in the problem set for the next week to make sure they understood the premises.

Yes, this helps very much. I am curious if there were one or two of the books you mentioned that you would particularly recommend for getting started?  While I know a lot of math, I don’t know a lot of games that relate to math. I kind of think the math itself is interesting, and have just never learned many games, so that would be an area of particular weakness for me. I do really like the format you outlined here. 

I am curious if you gave primarily problems that could actually be solved, or if you had them work on any unsolved problems as well? It’s an idea that I have toyed around with, but wouldn’t want to discourage young folks!

[vonfirmath]

Honestly, most  games use mathematical principles in one way or another. Logic. Spatial Relationships. Set Theory. Ratios and Percent chance.  Game theory. All part of math. The harder thing might be finding a game to math the skill being taught at the time.

Here is a description of how to play a modified game of War to learn math facts: https://denisegaskins.com/2006/12/29/the-game-that-is-worth-1000-worksheets/

Fractions game: http://www.learn-with-math-games.com/fractions-game.html

http://www.mrsgoldsclass.com/MathGames.htm

 

Games you can buy at the store:

Uno
SkipBo
Phase 10
Fluxx
Yahtzee
Qwirkle
Blokus
QBitz
Cribbage
Chess
Backgammon
Mancala
Rummikub
Prime Climb
Tiny Polka Dot
Monkey Fractions
Sum Swamp
Learning Resources Pizza Fractions
Three Sticks: Math Game Puzzles for Kids
Math Dice
Set
Farkle
Sushi Go
Pit
Rat-a-tat-cat
Hissss
Pick-a-dog/Pick-a-pig/Pick-a-seal card Game

ETA: Equate, Mobi

 

 

 

[Targhee]

17 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

Yes, this helps very much. I am curious if there were one or two of the books you mentioned that you would particularly recommend for getting started?  While I know a lot of math, I don’t know a lot of games that relate to math. I kind of think the math itself is interesting, and have just never learned many games, so that would be an area of particular weakness for me. I do really like the format you outlined here. 

I am curious if you gave primarily problems that could actually be solved, or if you had them work on any unsolved problems as well? It’s an idea that I have toyed around with, but wouldn’t want to discourage young folks!

6-10 spans a lot of development and kind of spans the middle of the two circles I did. I would look at books that had varying levels of difficulty to them.  Bright, Brave, Open Minds is a good one for that age range, and it because it walks through the discussion/activities it might give you an idea of how to run a session. This Mathematical Circle Diaries book was also very good but out of the age range (too old), and I have been looking at getting this one for the circle I am planning for dd6 this fall.  Circle-in-a-Box is available free in PDF from MSRI and may give you a good idea of running a circle.  Honestly, the extent of the circles they talk about in Circle-in-a-Box is more than the circles I ran on my own, but the info might pertain to you more.

As to problem sets, I did not ever use unsolved problems but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact I think it is great.  Here is an example of one week's take home problem set for a group of 8-12 year olds of varying math and problem solving prowess. I did not use many problems, and the problems increased in difficulty from the first to the last. This particular set I think was after our discussion of Knights and Knaves logic. HTH

Problem Set E.pdf

[desertflower]

We are using that book you want to buy in my co-op.  the person teaching it actually has a math degree, so it's fairly easy for her to implement.

She is also using strategies from a book titled mathematical mindsets by jo boaler.

 

Hth

[mamakelly]

Crazy 8’s is a math club that has free materials and free kit.

[desertflower]

My kids love bedtime math's crazy 8s. Unfortunately, one has to hold the class in a public venue to teach it.

[LMD]

When I did one with younger kids I used the most excellent Zvonkin book for inspiration

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/082186873X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527040438&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=zvonkin&dpPl=1&dpID=415C3QD9ZjL&ref=plSrch

I'd like to start a middle/high school one next year, possibly using Jacob's Human Endeavor book.

[4KookieKids]

Thanks, all! I think I've decided to have one mostly for ages 8-12, but with a few very bright 7 yo's (who are working on a 3rd/4th grade level). I found a parent of one such 7 yo who is happy to sit with the few 7 yo's and do a bit more hand-holding with them, so long as I give her adequate notice of what they'll be working on, which seems like a great fit, because my little 7 yo dd seems to think it's only "older boys" who get to be good at math (despite mom here being a girl with her phd in math... ) So I'll start looking at all these books more carefully and buying a few to read through carefully! I have a few of my own ideas to start off with, but need to do more reading because I really don't want to screw up and start wrong right off the bang! ?