Math Adventures
Newsletter
What are your math dreams? If we don’t stand up to Napoleon, who will? Newsletter May 15, 2013
03 days ago
by MariaD
in Newsletter
I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
Talking about the book: mini-course for parents
We are talking with many people about math ed.
When it comes to math and children, what do you want? What are your dreams?
This is what we ask. It gives people pause; it brings out passions. And then other questions come up – because what people want tends to be very, very far away from the current reality.
The questions start pouring in. How do I start? What resources should I use and where do I find them? Is my dream even possible? Has anyone done it before and succeeded?
One thing became clear in these conversations. Yes, online hubs like our Q&A platform help, especially when you have a specific question or two. For example, this Monday, Malke the math dancer wondered if attributes of dance constitute variables, and if we are doing algebra while choreographing. But someone who is just starting out is likely to have dozens of questions all at once. Or they might not have any questions because the subject is so new and overwhelming.
People want and need small, active support groups that can share dreams, brainstorm plans, and make things happen. Moreover, this brave undertaking has to be reasonably casual.
As a member of the National Association of Math Circles board, I often get into discussions of why don’t we have more Math Circles. I think I know why. Because too many people conceptualize Math Circles as hardcore endeavors that require the support of a university or a big corporation, and a highly educated leader working a gazillion hours a week to prepare and implement activities.
The model we are developing only requires a few interested people: a couple of parents whose kids are friends, a small homeschool coop, or a playgroup. Our pilot to test the model will be a mini-course online. The goal is to help participants start a local math playgroup or informal club. We think of the course as a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course), not because we want it large, but because it feels open and connected.
If you think you may want to start a math playgroup, and to participate in a course that will help, drop me a line!
Doing good: reasons people pay for the Moebius Noodles PDF
Our book has the open Creative Commons license, and is available as a download where people name their own price: http://www.moebiusnoodles.com/TheBook Some people download for free, which is great. We are very happy about the sales. We sell about the same number of digital files as we do paper books. People have good reasons to pay, and to name fair prices! So, people pay to…
- …Support further Moebius Noodles projects
- …Express appreciation of the art and content of the book
- …Feed the authors of the project
- …Be a hero of quality mathematics education
- …Share math all around the world (we get a much more international crowd for electronic sales)
- …Help to prove that open access and open licences are good ideas
All these reasons work! The Moebius Noodles team feels supported, and is doing more projects, like the parent course. Other excellent math authors are already working with us on more advanced young math booklets, which will also be available under open licenses. Other authors join in making their existing projects open, such as Don Cohen’s “Calculus for 7 year olds” and “Map to Calculus.” Volunteer teams are translating Moebius Noodles into Spanish, Persian, Russian, and Hebrew at a crowd-translation platform: http://crowdin.net/project/MoebiusNoodles We use CrowdIn for free, because we are a Creative Commons project. Email me if you want to start another language.
Thank you for your continuing support! Our math love to you!
Blogs and networking
Unschooling Lifestyle is celebrating the name “Moebius Noodles” with some Mobius Strip activities and resources, such as Vi Hart’s story “Wind and Mr. Ug.”
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Michael Kelly is chatting with us on Facebook about the Fibonacci Day 5/8/13.
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At her “Math Mama Writes” blog, Sue VanHattum talks about the role of Creative Commons open licence in decisions to read and to buy books. Here are some comments on the post. The first one refers to our note by the “Download PDF” button: “You choose how much you want to pay, and type the number here. Support Moebius Noodles as you can, from zero to infinity!”
Denise Gaskins:
I wonder how they would process a payment of “infinity” for the pdf…
Butterfly:
What a brilliant book! I have just devoured the PDF and am eager to buy the hard copy … just deciding how many copies 
Denise Gaskins:
How many copies: Our church has a lot of young couples, so I plan to buy a copy for every new baby shower. In fact, I wish I had enough spare money to get one for every kid in the nursery now…
In the next few days, we will be adding an option for groups to save on shipping when they order multiple copies. I know it is welcome news for learning coops, math circles, and simply groups of friends who want to do math together. Right now buying an extra copy saves almost four dollars on shipping.
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In related news, we greatly simplified the PDF download based on the comments of Vlad Kuznetsov on Facebook. Now it’s quicker and easier – thanks Vlad!
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Here is our crowdfunder Dor Abrahamson, giving his Supporter Certificate a visual “Like!” Send us photos of kids, friends and colleagues enjoying the book or playing math games from it!
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything here as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on May 30th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
Newsletter April 30, 2013
02 weeks ago
by MariaD
in Newsletter
I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
Book news
This week, the paper books will be on the way to the crowdfunder supporters and to the first buyers. I am happy with the quality of the paper, the binding, and the colors. Yes, it is great to hold this object, this physical book in your hand! Once the book arrives, please send us photos of yourselves and your kids enjoying it. We are starting a collection!
There are two translation efforts under way: Russian and Persian. If you are interested in translating the book into your language, please let me know.
We are starting to meet with parent, educator, and techie groups interested in implementing the book ideas and more. There is much hunger for advanced, playful math that children make for themselves – following their unique dreams and needs. We are working on support systems for people who pledge to this cause, so we can meet one another, and find as much resources and encouragement as needed to help the children. Everywhere we bring these ideas, there are offers of support from parents, educators, and business leaders.
If you would like us to meet with parents in your learning coop or playgroup, in person or online, let me know!
Blogs and networking
We had to make a mirror for the site, because the traffic exceeded limits several times in the last weeks. Welcome, new friends and colleagues!
Math Forum at Drexel, one of the oldest and largest math educator hubs online, included news of the Moebius Noodles book launch in its April newsletter. This is the feature icon they gave us:
It has a dragon curve on it – quite appropriate for the adventurous math! The dragon curve also goes well with our chapter on fractals. You can use it to make up other roleplaying fractal curves.
Moebius Noodles had a guest post at the Scientific American’s blog on raising science-literate kids. Here is the beginning of the post:
Children dream big. They crave exciting and beautiful adventures and they love to pretend-play. Just ask them who they want to be when they grow up. The answers will run the gamut from astronauts to zoologists and from ballerinas to Jedi masters. So how come children don’t dream of becoming mathematicians?
Kids don’t dream of becoming mathematicians because they already are mathematicians. Children have more imagination than it takes to do differential calculus. They are frequently all too literate like logicians and precise like set theorists. They are persistent, fascinated with strange outcomes and are out to explore the “what-if” scenarios. These are the qualities of good mathematicians!
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything here as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on May 15th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
Newsletter April 15, 2013
01 month ago
by MariaD
in Newsletter
I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
BIG NEWS!
This week, I am a believer in the goodness of the Universe, and in the power of the people: “Where there is a will, there is a way!” Hundreds of parents, mathematicians, and educators gave advice, tested games with their kids, shared stories and ideas, debugged the math, crowdfunded the project, helped to spread the word, and cheered one another on.
And finally, the Moebius Noodles book – your book – is here! THANK YOU!
Reviewers say the book is beautiful, smart, and meaningful. I am in love too! It also has an open license, so you are welcome to remix the games, translate the book into other languages, and show the book to friends and colleagues. You can preview pages, buy the paperback or download the PDF here: http://www.moebiusnoodles.com/TheBook Please spread the word!
For supporters who crowdfunded the project: your copies of Moebius Noodles will be on the way within the next few weeks.
What is next? First and foremost, we will be helping more and more people to play adventurous Moebius Noodles math with their kids, and to discuss it with like-minded grown-ups. That will be the goal of virtual and physical book tours, workshops, and events. At the same time, we will be working on other authoring projects inspired by the success of the first one.
Available now:
- Question and answer hub about young math http://ask.moebiusnoodles.com/index.html
Coming soon:
- James Tanton and the Moebius Noodles crew adapt ten powerful problem-solving techniques for toddlers and young kids
- Oleg Gleizer and Olga Radko use the Moebius Noodles co-creation process to make a booklet on combinatorics (Young diagrams)
- A large group (anonymous for now) puts together a collection of calculus games, fables and jokes (short-hand abstractions) accessible to five-year-olds
Join us for more adventurous math for the playground crowd!
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything here as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on April 30th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
Newsletter March 30, 2013
01 month ago
by MariaD
in Newsletter
Welcome to adventurous math for the playground crowd! I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
Book news
We are polishing the book landing page. It will have a short Moebius Noodles declaration of principles, previews of pages, quotes from reviews, and so on. We need to find a balance between greeting newbies first coming upon Moebius Noodles – and displaying photos, questions and answers, and game ideas from people already involved with the project.
The book is a beginning. It is an invitation to join the Moebius Noodles movement!
How do you join? Questions are at the heart of learning mathematics. To join Moebius Noodles movement, ask a question!
The powerful enterprise software for questions and answers is provided to Moebius Noodles by DZone, a publisher and a community of software developers. The leaders of DZone believe in supporting excellent mathematics education for the next generation of technologists.
Blogs and networks
Math Goggles #9 invites you to seek math in your child’s favorite cartoons:
This week’s Math Goggles challenge is very simple – watch one of your child’s favorite cartoons and look for math in it. If it seems interesting, intriguing, strange, weird, and worth investigating, look further into it. Yep, that’s it! Here’s how it worked out for me…
Math Goggles #10 is a series of challenges about slicing bagels. It starts simple: can you slice into two pieces? Can you slice so that the cross-section is two circles? Then it gets involved, all the way to trefoil knots and mobius strips.
David Coffey started a meme on making every day mathematically special. Try it with your kids! Ask them for their favorite numbers, and celebrate when those days come up. Our examples are on the blog; here’s one for today, 3/30:
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything here as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on April 15th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
Newsletter March 15, 2013
02 months ago
by MariaD
in Newsletter
Welcome to adventurous math for the playground crowd! I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
Book news
This week, we had the thrill of holding the full file of the book in front of our eyes. The front and back cover, Library of Congress and ISBN numbers, Table of Contents, everything! It was so tempting to rush the book to you right then! But we had to follow the plan for another round of quality assurance, with multiple people checking and re-checking everything. More than thirty corrections of layout, text-illustration correspondences, and typos later, the book is going to the printers and the ePub formatting. We will have to check on the printer’s proofs, as well. Like Zeno’s arrow, “Moebius Noodles” is approaching the error-free state. No book ever gets there, but we’ll get close enough for all practical purposes!
Meanwhile, here are three of many stages of our back cover design: the finished look with 3D models of the real opened book; the first schematic of the layout; and an early draft. The back cover is a diagram of how to navigate through the book. We thought it would be a bit more useful than the advance praise you traditionally find on back covers, which we love too, by the way. We will be aggregating reviews online.
Blogs and networks
Sol Lederman interviewed Maria Droujkova for his Inspired by Math series on notable modern mathematicians and mathematics educators. Why is there so much computer science in the “Moebius Noodles” book? What is math literacy? What is Maria’s secret plan for taking over the world? Listen to the podcast and find out!
Our Spanish-speaking readers will enjoy math videos by our book illustrator, Ever Salazar. But math is a universal language! Check out what Mary O’Keeffe (Albany Math Circle) is doing, after having found the videos via the Moebius Noodles Facebook page:
Thanks to Maria Droujkova for bringing this wondrous, brilliant, and engaging series of math videos in Spanish to my attention! It is a terrific way for me to pick up at least a little bit of mathematical Spanish before my trip to lead activities at a math festival in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico this weekend.
Math Goggles issue #7 is inspired by Keith Devlin’s MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) on mathematical thinking. It is about the ambiguity of our language, with examples from newspapers, such as “Teen found after ski slope disappearance” (where did the slope go?).
Math Goggles #8 invites you to make puzzles using LEGO and other 3D tools.
Find a math and logic puzzle that you’ve not seen or solved before. Now, build it with whatever it is you have handy – cardboard, wrapping paper and glue; modeling clay; marshmallows and toothpicks; building blocks. You might like the challenge of recreating a pen-and-paper puzzle with 3-dimensional objects. Or you might like the idea of taking a 3D puzzle and drawing it.
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything here as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on March 30th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
Newsletter February 28, 2013
02 months ago
by MariaD
in Newsletter
Welcome to adventurous math for the playground crowd! I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
Book news
We are almost done copy editing. What’s with the “almost” part, you ask? Turns out, it takes a lot of work to craft definitions so they come out just right. And by “just right” we mean both rigorous and accessible. Should we be so particular when defining math terms for little kids? We believe so. In fact, based on our experience playing and talking with children, we know that they are very keen observers who will spot inconsistencies, notice exceptions, and call you up on contradictions. This, combined with their curiosity and fearlessness of complex math ideas makes our task both exciting and challenging.
Last week we went through about a dozen versions of the definition of recursion. The notion appears in chapters on functions and fractals. We ended up with a version from computer science rather than math. We believe it makes the most sense. Check it out:
What do “This Is the House That Jack Built,” slicing pizza, and stacking up blocks have in common? They are all examples of recursion: applying the same operation to previous results. This produces patterns that change in a self-similar ways, much like fractals. You put the next block on top of all past blocks; you repeat – and an amazing block tower grows till the baby knocks it down. You slice each piece of your pizza in half; you repeat – until there are enough slices for everyone. You keep on adding verses – while keeping the entire previous rhyme, much like the block tower:
This is the dog that worried the cat
That killed the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
Bold words are also defined in the glossary. We hope our glossary will be a start of a stand-alone resource. There is a general lack of simple rigorous math definitions! For example, Wikipedia has several relevant articles: Yon Yonson and House That Jack Built and Cumulative tale. But click math links in the articles at your own risk, because the definitions assume very formal math background!
Blogs and networks
Our weekly Math Goggles series has two new activities out!
In #6 Yelena invites you to read math stories:
March is a great month for math holidays. First Wednesday of the month is the World Maths Day. Right after it comes the World Science Day. Then, of course, there’s the Pi Day. But first, at least this year, comes the Read Across America Day. So this week’s Math Goggles challenge is to pick up and read a fun math book. If you are not sure what Math Goggles Challenges are all about, check here first. If you are not sure how a math book can be fun, read on.
In #5 you can ascend from cleanliness to mathyness:
I imagined creating an algorithm for a robot to wash my dishes. My algorithm started with the robot checking whether there were any dishes in the sink. If no, it’d stand by or, ideally, switch to a different chore. If yes, then it would turn water on. Then it would soap up the scrubby and pick up the first dirty plate. Scrub, rinse, check, put on a drying rack. Repeat until the sink is empty. Are those the smallest steps that my dish-washing algorithm can be broken into? Of course, not…
Malke, meanwhile, is thinking in threes. Check out the gorgeous Sierpinski fractal made out of clover! Could you use four-leaf clover instead? How?
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything here as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on March 15th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
Newsletter February 15, 2013
03 months ago
by MariaD
in Newsletter
Welcome to adventurous math for the playground crowd! I am Moby Snoodles, and I love to hear from you at moby@moebiusnoodles.com
Book news
Carol Cross, our awesome copy editor, is finishing the work this weekend. We should have the printed book pre-order form up in the next few days, as well. The first print run will be for those people who crowd-funded the project at the level of paper book copies, as well as the pre-orders.
Blogs and networks
School your kids (and yourself) in the art of asking questions, build chains of attributes, and study home patternomics with our new series of mini-games called Math Goggles.
Want some sage advice from a ten-year-old math club leader? Check out the guest blog post by Marie!
My name is Marie, and I am ten years old. Since I was six years old, I have attended a math circle. Last year I started to help out with the class for little kids. This year, I decided that I could start teaching a math circle on my own. Now, I am teaching a Pre-K math circle for little kids that are about four or five years old. The kids are used to me now, and I am really enjoying the teaching experience.
Kids are much more involved in the class when:
- The problems involve them
- They get to choose what the problems are about, or at least change the details of the problems
- The problems involve real-life situations, especially if they have to do with their life
- The problem has a fairy tale, or some other kind of story woven into it.
Sharing
You are welcome to share the contents of this newsletter online or in print. You can also remix and tweak anything here as you wish, as long as you share your creations on the same terms. Please credit MoebiusNoodles.com
More formally, we distribute all Moebius Noodles content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license: CC BY-NC-SA
Talk to you again on February 28th!
Moby Snoodles, aka Dr. Maria Droujkova
