Although rare, occasionally on my personal Facebook, someone will post something that is both fun AND educational. I have always been a fan of fun math type tricks. As a child, I always loved it when one of my teachers would show the class a math trick that was easy to do. The first time a teacher showed my class the "birthday problem" I learned that 2 other students in a class of roughly 30 students shared a birthday with me.
Back to Facebook. A few months ago a friend had shared the following video on my wall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SZw8jpfAk0
It is simple, easy and effective to help students of all ages with their multiplication. Although it could result in a lot of diagrams drawn on work and assignments, I am surprised that I have never seen this before.
Oh, and if you have never heard of the birthday problem, read up friends: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
wow!! That is a great trick! That would be a great strategy to use in order to help teach math, but also as a fun and easy way to encourage students to check over their work!
ReplyDeleteI did not know about the birthday problem so I followed the link in your blog to read more. I realized how easy this can be used as an activity in the classroom when we are teaching about probability! “What’s the probability that two people in this class share a birthday?”
ReplyDeleteThey will not believe that a class with 23 students will generate a 50% probability for any two students to share the same birthday!
The Math Trick Multiply Using Lines it is an awesome way to do multiplication. It is used in Japan. It is a fast way to check your answers for multiplication questions.
Can't wait to show this trick in my classroom!