MathStuff

Hi All, Yes, people still use coins. Not as much as back in the day, but there remains the need to know about physical money.  Here's a simple, but motivating game that will help. The reality is kids like money! They'll play this on their own for fun as long as you keep a big pile of money around. I like to keep it in one of those big holiday cookie tins. That way you can shake it, hear it, and really feel the weight. Engage all the senses! The Trade Up Game can be altered to meet the needs of a range of grades and learners. There's lots of potential mental addition, skip counts, and combinations in addition to learning bill and coin identification and values. Plus, it's very hands-on! 1. Give players a die and a large pile of mixed coins and bills. 2. Players take turns rolling the die. Whatever number comes up, that's the amount (value) of money you take from the pile. 3. Players should try to create that amount with the least number of coins possible.

Hi All, Given recent circumstances in our country, I felt the need to take a time out from math and share instead some thoughts about brotherhood. Which for me (and safe to say, the Bible) is the opposite of racism and division. Growing up I most often felt real, genuine brotherhood with  people of different races when we were all working together on something. It might have been a play, or in Boy Scouts camping, or a service project, or in a class. However, I felt it mostly strongly in sports. I decided to write about that experience in a young adult book called REBOUND. The book was originally called BLACK AND WHITE, but in the last months before publication another book called BLACK AND WHITE came out, so we had to come up with a new title. I wanted to call my book BLACK AND WHITE, not only because the story centers on a high school basketball team with a mix of black and white players and their conflicts, but also because my personal experience with racism was that it wa