Playful Math Carnival #164

 Welcome to the 164th edition of the Playful Math Education Carnival 

I am Dave your host for this month.   This is my first time hosting this carnival and I'm not quite sure what I'm doing.  But in true growth mindset lingo, I don't know what I'm doing yet.  As Dr. Teeth says in The Muppet Movie, "There ain't nothin' to it but to do it."

Thanks to the incomparable Denise Gaskins for giving me a chance to host.  Before we get into gear just a little bit more about me ...

I started this blog 14 years ago back when I was a home educator and this blog was named Home School Dad.  During that time I was a frequent participant and host of the Carnival of Homeschooling.  I loved that carnival and especially loved hosting it.  I also loved all the great math ideas I would see in Blogs like Denises.  

When I was a home educator, I would often teach math games classes at our local home school cooperative.  5 years ago when I became a substitute teacher I would love to see all the great ideas that the teachers I was subbing for and all the wonderful resources that are out there.  

This winter I became a building sub in my district.  When I'm not in for another teacher I go from class to class and am an extra set of hands, this usually will happen during Math and ELA instruction and I was hoping to share a lot of the games and activities the teachers use in today's post.

Unfortunately, almost immediately into the semester I started subbing for the P.E. teacher for almost 2 months, and now I'm subbing in a special-ed classroom for the rest of the year, so I haven't gleaned as many ideas as I hoped I would. I think though I have assembled some good stuff for this month's edition.  So let's give it a go. 

Remembering Our Past

Big shout out to 1001 Math Problems for hosting Carnival # 163. 

She began by telling us some info about the number 163 so I'll start by giving you a little info about 164.

164 hours is about a week.  In fact, if you take 164 hours  (6 days 20 hours) and add  164  minutes (2 hours 44 minutes then add  164 seconds  (2 minutes 44 seconds)  you would have a total of  6 days 22 hours 46 minutes and 44 seconds which would be approximately 1:15 minutes less than a week.

164 is what I call an A square B number.  It is the product of 41 times 2 squared. 

164 is the 22nd A squared B number. 

Numbermatics has some more information on good old 164 entitled  Number 164 - Facts about the integer

How Many Days Have I Lived?

Here is an idea I use as a parlor trick but have also been bringing into the classroom. This can be done on the whiteboard or smart board with one individual or you could have each student do it on their own whiteboard, paper, or computer

First, have the student write their date of birth month date, and year.

Our example student was born ten years ago 4/28/13

The next thing I have the students do is write in one column 4-year increments from their birthday until the day before their birthday 4 years later.

Our example student:

4/28/13 - 4/27/17

4/28/13 - 4/27/21

Once you cannot add any more increments of 4 years then you go by single years

4/28/21 - 4/27/22

4/28/22 - 4/27/23

Hopefully, while you are explaining this you'll get a student or two who will tell you that they don't have to do all that, the birthday person just simply needs to multiply their age times 365 and that will show how many days they've lived.

I will go ahead and have them make the calculation but then I'll go back and have them write out a 2nd column showing how many days they actually lived in a 4 year period:

4/28/13 - 4/27/17            1461

4/28/13 - 4/27/21            1461

4/28/21 - 4/27/22              365 

4/28/22 - 4/27/23              365

I will then have them add the 2nd column up and compare it to their calculation. (1,462 to 1,460).  At some point, a student will realize the first calculation did not account for leap days.  I would then ask is this how many days our birthday friend has lived? I will then remind them that they lived today so they have lived 1.463 days.  

Movies and Math

I have spent most of this month blogging about movies for the A to Z Challenge.  

Over at Mashup Math, they posted 10 Best Math Movies For All Ages.  This list included my H entry for the challenge, Hidden Figures.

Katherine Johnson - One of the Nasa computers featured in Hidden Figures

Click here for a brief biography of Katherine Johnson from Mathigon



April 11th was my 25th wedding anniversary

and it made me wonder if there were any math milestones in April.  

It turns out that April 11th, 1936 is the day Konrad Zuse  (who looks in the picture below like a combination of baseball broadcaster Harry Carey and cartoonist Charles M Schulz.) filed a patent for the automatic execution of operations while working on the first German computer, the Z-1.

On April 11th 2020 mathemetician , John Conway died of complications to Co-vid 19.  The above referenced link to April 11th,1936 contains this quote which I think is apropos to a Playful Math Carnival :

...You get surreal numbers by playing games. I used to feel guilty in Cambridge that I spent all day playing games, while I was supposed to be doing mathematics. Then, when I discovered surreal numbers, I realized that playing games IS mathematics.

 

 Denise Gaskins of Denise Gaskin's Let's Play Math presents Thinking Thursday: Invent A Game 3.

Her journaling prompt about variations of tic-tac-toe got me thinking of other pen-and-paper games like the dot game.  I did some research and learned about a game called Chomp. 

By Lord Belbury - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86379139

 I'm sure that all of you out there are probably more familiar with it than I was., but just in case here is a video describing the gameplay.  

While researching this game I got to thinking of the 1999 classic book The Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar Fraction Book.  

I don't write many math posts on my blog, but if I did I would write posts entitled "Why do all the good children's books go out of print?" If I were a bookstore owner I'd always have 3 copies of this book on my shelf.  

Teachers who don't have access to this book can borrow it virtually from Internet Archive.

I decided to make a version of Chomp for fractions. I call it Fraction Chomp, but I'm very creative with my titles. It's played exactly like described in the video except all grids should have pieces that are divided by 12 (examples 3by4, 8by3, 6by8,...) The players "chomp" a fraction of the pieces off the grid.  The fractions they can use or 1/2 1/3/ 1/4 and 1/6.  The play continues until one player can not make a fraction of the remaining pieces that is a whole number.

Imagine a 3 by 4 grid ...

• The first player chomped 1/3 of the pieces leaving  8 left. 
• The 2nd player might chomp 1/4 of the remaining pieces leaving 6 left. 
• The first player would then chomp 1/3 and 4 would remain.  

At this point if the second player then chomps 1/4th of the pieces he will eventually win since their opponent will have no choice but to chomp 1/3 allowing the second player to chomp 1/2 and the first player will lose.  

However, if player 2 chomps 1/2 of the remaining 4 pieces they would lose as player 1 would also chomp 1/2 the remaining pieces for the victory.  

Kudos to Ontario Math Links who I am using 2 of their links from their article, Math Links for Week Ending April 21,st 2023. (Crazy Person Note: The week did not end on April 21st, 2023, it being a Friday and all) 

The first was from Medium blogger Sunil Singh who posted Number Hive: The Clever Gamification of Factual Fluency.  I had played Number Hive before it's like Connect-4 with multiplication.

The second link isn't a game but could still be fun in a group.  It is from the blog Emergent Math and asks the question: Is The Subway Footlong Pass Worth It?

April was National Poetry Month 

I participated in an online progressive poem..  Each day in April A poet added another line to a poem and posted it on their blog.  Here is a link to the poem as of April 28th.  

This got me to thinking about poetry and math in 2 different ways.

1. Progressive Story Problems

Have one of the students write a story problem.  Then have a second student write another story problem that starts somehow with the answer to the first problem.  A man has 6 horses 2 goats and 2 sheep. How many more horses does he have than the other animals combined? The answer is 2 Horses. The next question might start with 2 horses weigh as much as 10 sheep.  The horses weigh a combined 2000 pounds what is the average weight of the sheep? The next question could start with about 200 pounds of anything and so on and so on.  

2. Fibonacci Poem Problems

A Fibonacci Poem or Fib is a poem whose syllables follow the Fibonacci sequence

They are typically 6 lines and follow the pattern

1 syllable

1sylabble

2 syllables

3 syllables

5 syllables

8 syllables

Here is one I just wrote about my favorite ball team's current streak of ineptitude

White

Sox

Lost nine

In a row

When they play again,

Will the losses amount to ten?

Fibonacci Math Poetry

Write a fib poem

That is also a math problem or a math statement.

For example as a statement:

2

plus

7

Don't equal

11, you'll find

They actually* equal 9

*ak-sh-u-lee (4 syllables)    

As a problem:

Three

Times

Thirteen

Plus Nineteen

Is the same as two

Times what double-digit number?

#TMWYK

We have another magic square for you!
In collab with @mathforlove#earlymath #tmwyk #learningthroughplay #earlychildhoodeducation #learning #mathgames #mathstrategy #mathematics #numeracy #playbasedlearning #co #mathisfun #parenting #playathome pic.twitter.com/DliKD6obDU

— EarlyFamilyMath (@EarlyFamilyMath) April 25, 2023

 

Cindy at Our Journey Westward shares An Abstract Art And Living Math Activity Inspired by Kandinsky 

Going to bring it on home and end with this link from last year from Sarah at Math = Love.  52 Fun End Of Year Activities For Math Class.

I've enjoyed hosting for the first time.  Next time I won't sign up for my busiest month of the year and I will start preparing much earlier than I did,  Next month's carnival will be at Nature Study Australia 

X is For X-Men First Class

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 2  more times this month.

Film:  X-Men: First Class (2011)

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Positive Tomato: Great action, riveting drama, real dilemmas, and interesting characters... X-Men: First Class is fun all the way. Nikhat Kazmi - The Times of India 

Negative Tomato:  Worst of all, the movie doesn't even look that great for all the money that went into it. David Harris - Spectrum Culture

The A to Z Challenge has, well, it's challenges.  One of those challenges is choosing topics for certain letters.  X is a very difficult letter to pick a topic for.  When I was in Highschool the movie Xanadau came out.  I remember watching it, but I don't remember much else about it, except I didn't think it was very good.  I was planning on reluctantly watching it again, but then I remembered the X-men franchise and decided that any of those movies would be better than watching Xanadu again.

I did not see this movie in the theatre but watched it on t.v. a few years after it came out.  It tells the story of how Professor X and Magneto formed the X-Men and then went on their separate ways.  It Stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kevin Bacon.

I think it was clever to set the film during the Cuban missile crisis, the height of the cold war.  There are some aspects of the movie I wasn't too fond of, but overall it's decent entertainment.

Resiliency: Xavier has 2  major setbacks handed to him at the end of this film.  As this movie was set in the past and is based on well-known comic book characters, we know that Professox X had the resilience to get beyond both setbacks.  

Top 100: I will have 2  possible 3 superhero movies in my top 100, this will not be one of them.

A To Z Connection: This is one of two movies in the challenge that concerns itself with genetics (Gattaca).

 

Next Time: Your basic class comedy.

W is for When

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 3  more times this month.

Film: When A Man Loves A Woman (1994) 

Director: Luis Mandoki

Positive Tomato: Here is a wise and ambitious film about the way alcoholism affects the fabric of a marriage. Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times

Negative Tomato: Does her husband notice her addiction? How could he not? Does he care? Who knows! Jonah Koslofsky - The Spool

I've decided to alter the format of today's entry a little bit. I'll still tell you a brief synopsis of the 1994 Rom Dram but after that I'm going to type a transcript of a conversation I had with my wife earlier this week about the film.  The movie stars Meg Ryan and And Garcia as a working couple with 2 children.  Ryan has a drinking problem and the film examines the couples relationship as she seeks treatment and he copes with the aftermath of her addiction.  

Dave: Amy we've talked a lot about qualities that  movies my top 100 list would have and one of them is re-watchability.  You definitely think When A Man Loves A woman is rewatchable.  What makes it that way?

Amy: It's a really good movie.  It's a good depiction of both an alcoholic and an enabler and how those two things together make a storm.

Dave: How does that make it rewatchable?

Amy: Watching the pain get resolved.  The dual depiction gives it a unique perspective.

Dave: What do you think of Andy Garcia's character?

Amy: We see him as a tough guy at the beginning of the movie who has to help Mag Ryan and realize that he is as powerless as she is in rectifying the situation.

Also, watching the way he loves his children and communicates with them is very beautiful

Dave: Do you believe that this is a Meg Ryan vehicle, and that the title is a little misleading?

Amy:No, I think they beautifully create a movie where  there are two equal stars.  I think Andy's story is just as gripping as Meg's.

Dave: Were you a little surprised that I didn't have When Harry Met Sally as my W?

Amy: Yes! You like that movie a lot more than this one.  But then again, I don't fully  understand your selection process.

The conversation veered to different paths from there.

Resiliency:  If I would have asked Amy about the theme of resiiency in this film, I think she would have said something like that this movie examines the resiliency of this marriage through the lens of addiction and recovery. I didn't aske her, so we may never know.

Top 100: This movie would definitely be in Amy's top 100.  I like the film and enjoy watchingit with her, but at this point I would not consider it for my top 100. 

A to Z Connections: Like Ordinary People, this movie depicts a family in crisis.  Vertigo and Gattaca along with When a Man Loves a Woman were all primarily filmed in california.

Next Time: Xciting time travel movie.  

.

V is For Vertigo

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 4  more times this month.

Film: Vertigo (1958)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

By Saul Bass - http://aliceovolk.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/vertigo-1958-usa-movie-poster-art-by-saul-bass-james-stewart-in-alfred-hitchcocks-vertigo1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25318666

I haven't seen this movie for a while so I went tot he library today and checked it out and am watching it as I make this post.  I've been watching for an over an hour, and am at the point of the movie where the pieces should be coming together but they are not.  

Positive Tomato: One of Hitchcock's finest achievements, layering drama, a love story, adventure, and hair-raising suspense into a psychological murder-mystery that simply has no peers. Mike Massie - Gone With The Twins 

Negative Tomato: Even such a master-craftsman as director Alfred Hitchcock sometimes forgets that more than enough is too much, as he proves in this photogenic San Francisco suspense-mystery, which is still badly in need of the cutter's shears. Clyde Gilmour - Maclean's Magazine

Jimmy Stewart starring in his 4th Alfred Hitchcock film plays a retired detective who is asked by an old friend to protect his wife from herself, but all is not as it seems.  

Leyostone Tube Station

By Mike Quinn, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45941673

I just got to the point of the big plot twist, I had forgotten all about it.  Things are getting interesting, I'm not sure how its going to end.

Resiliency: This movie is a psychological thriller in every sense of the word.  The way the killer operates here is to steal all of Stewart's resiliency.  He is unable to move forward so instead he moves backward.

Top 100: I just finished watching the film , and I am leaning towards the verdict of the negative tomato rather than  the positive one.  I mentioned in a previous review, that I don't know what my #1 Hitchcock film is, well It is not Vertigo.

I was disappointed in the ending.  It made sense and it kept me guessing until the end.  I just didn't like how it played out.  One reason is that Barbara Bel Geddes isn't in the last act of that film and she made every scene she was in so much better by her presence.   Bel Geddes who played the matriarch in the T.V. soap Dallas, plays an interesting role in this movie.  I would have liked to see her utilized more in the film.  Not to say that the star Kim Novak doesn't do a good job, she does.  It's just I fount myself rooting more for Bel Geddes than Novak.

A to Z Connections: This is the second Alfred Hitchcock directed film in the challenge (North by Northwest).  

There are 3 A to Z connections with It's A  Wonderful Life: 

• They both star Jimmy Stewart.
• They both have a scene where Stewart jumps into water to save someone who doesn't need saving.
• Neither did well in their original cinematic runs and over the course of time became more and more well regarded.  They are both in the top 25 of the American Film Institutes (AFI) Top 100 Film List

Next Time: Will there be swans?

U is for UHF

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 5  more times this month.

Film: UHF (1989) 

Director: Jay Levey

Weird Al's Apartment in UHF
By Mountain Mike Johans…, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47260199

I love parodies. I grew up listening to one of the greatest parodists of all time, Allan Sherman.  My Mom and Dad would send out a Christmas Card each year where they would write our family's annual exploits to the tune of a Christmas carol.  I myself have written a number of parodies and have posted many in my blog. 

I even wrote a parody last Saturday to publicize my S is for Silverado post and put it on my Facebook page.

 (Sung to the tune of Desperado by The Eagles) 

Silverado, you are in my top eleven.

You star two great Kevin’s 

Plus one Glenn, and one Glover 

You’re a western

 But so much more than your genre 

Which is why I’m so fond a 

 This joy I’ve discovered.  

But with no disrespect to Alan Sherman, my parents, or myself, my favorite parodist is Weird Al Yankovic.

When Weird Al first started out he would send his songs to Dr. Demento who would play them on his syndicated radio program.  My favorite of which, and my all-time favorite Weird Al Song, is It's Still Billy Joel to Me, performed to the tune of It's Still Rock and Roll to Me by (Wait for it ....) Billy Joel.

 

I mean Weird Al had the audacity to rip Billy Joel's music while performing Billy Joel's music. I was impressed. In 1989, Weird Al set his sights on television and the movies at the same time by starring in and co-writing UHF a movie about a t.v. channel.  

At the time most network television was broadcast on VHF (Very High Frequency) and most independent stations were broadcast on UHF (Ultra High Frequency).  While some might argue about the quality of these frequencies.  The quality of the programming was generally regarded as infinitely better on VHF. 

 Positive Tomato - The individual parts may be greater than the sum of the whole, but man, are those parts funny. Austin Trunick - Under The Radar

Negative Tomato - This is the dreariest comedy in many a month, a depressing slog through recycled comic formulas. Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times 

If I were to give UHF a 6 or less-word film review it would be: Walter Mitty meets SCTV. The film is essentially a bunch of parodies with a plot sandwiched in between them.  The movie begins with a pretty good Raiders parody.

Resiliency: Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) is the best part of this movie.  He plays Stanley Spadowski who shows resiliency after being fired from the best t.v. station in town where he worked as a janitor and ended up getting hired as a janitor at the station Yankovic manages to host a wildly successful children's t.v. program. 

Top 100: This movie straddles the fence between so dumb it's funny and so dumb it's dumb. It has many fine moments, but it is nowhere near making my top 100.

A to Z Connection: This is the 2nd film in the challenge about television (Quiz Show). 

Next Time: VHF (Very High Fears)