Wednesday, May 23, 2012

3x3 and The Rise of Fun Math


I teach an improv class on Wednesdays to kids age 6-8 at Kids in Sync, an occupational therapy school that helps kids with developmental issues (i.e. autism spectrum). In addition to the class, I work with one girl for about 30 minutes before the actual class starts so she can warm up. In the past we've done activites such as a putting together a puzzle, playing on the swings, and competing in various ball games that I sometimes let myself win because children need to learn to lose gracefully and I can't lose ALL THE TIME. But today, we did something totally new: Rosie taught me about math. And how math is fun nowadays.


This is how the conversation unraveled:


Rosie: Oh, I know what 9x9 is!
Me: Me too. 
Rosie: It's 91.
Me: No, it's not. 
Rosie: No, wait. It's 76.
Me: Is it? 
Rosie: Yeah.
Me: No, it's not. It's 81.
Rosie: Oh yeah. It is. Now I remember.


At this point, I'm thinking, that's a tough one and I'll lob her a softball question with some low numbers and she'll knock it out of the park.


Me: Here's an easy one. What's 3x3?
Rosie: 11?
Me: No... try again.
Rosie: I know 3x2 is 6!
Me: Okay, so 3x2 is 6... so one more 3 would make it...
Rosie: 12?
Me: 9. Three 3's make 9.
Rosie: Oh! I did know that because there's a fun math story for it.
Me: Fun math?
Rosie: We only learn fun math in my school. It's math but fun. Here's the story to help you remember. So there's a woman and she wants to have kids like her cousin. Her cousin's kids are special because they each have three tails. So if there's three kids, and each has three tails, that's nine tails total. 3x3=9. The woman wants to have kids with nine tails total. 
Me: Oh. That makes sense.


I like the idea that each calculation has a story behind it, but it seems incredibly inefficient to memorize entire stories instead of a simple calculation. This became more apparent as I continued to quiz Rosie and she struggled to remember if 7x3 was the story of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly or if it was the double decker bus that rides an elevator. But in the end, she -almost- always got them right. 


I'm glad math has finally been packaged in a way that kids think they're having fun when they're doing math. I wish someone had tricked me that math was fun so I wouldn't have had to cheat my way through college stat class to earn a C and graduate by the skin of my teeth. And I wouldn't have had to write this blog post on an calculator.


Congratulations on making a come-back, math! You're doing it!





1 comment:

  1. Solid theory. If I remember correctly, Einstein stumbled upon E=mc^2 when he was writing a 600-page novel about an elephant who wanted spots like a giraffe.

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