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New Math Activity Calendar: October is Spooky Math Month

Tracy H — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:30:45 +0000

Halloween is just around the corner, and that means tricks and treats for children! Celebrate the holiday with spooky-but-fun math activities during Spooky Math Month, including pumpkin math fun, with our October Math Activity Calendar!

Activity Calendar Highlights

Have your students or your kids figure out how many cookies are in a dozen on Homemade Cookie Day on October 1^st
Learn about five famous explorers on Columbus Day, October 12^th
Count how many seeds your pumpkin has on Pumpkin Carving Day, October 26^th

Tell DreamBox How Your Children Celebrate Halloween

Are your students dressing up for Halloween? Are your children dressing up as a pirate, pixie, dinosaur or pet? Leave us a comment below or on our DreamBox Learning page on Facebook, and let us know if your children are dressing up as some of our adventure friends in DreamBox! We hope you and your kids have a math-tastic time with our October Math Activity Calendar!

Pumpkin Math Art

Sue — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:13:09 +0000

OK, Halloween is behind us, and we have the bowl of left-over candy in our kitchen to prove it. But one of our ace QA engineers is really good with a carving knife apparently. We wanted to share her handiwork with you!

Have a Spooktacular Green Halloween

Tracy — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:28:51 +0000

Maybe you didn’t think it was possible. But yes, you can have an enjoyable Halloween and be healthy and earth conscious. Let's make the year's most spooktacular holiday a Green Halloween by showing the importance of reducing sugary sweets and being environmentally friendly.

Pumpkin-O-Meter

After your ghastly ghoul or pretty princess reaches their quota for candy, show your children the importance of pumpkin math, and calorie counting with the Pumpkin-O-Meter presented by kidsHealth.org. In this counting exercise, the Pumpkin-O-Meter teaches kids how each candy possesses a different caloric value. As children drag and drop the candy into the pumpkin's mouth, they learn how much candy is too much (like eight large candy bars) all while practicing counting and addition. When they add too much candy to the pumpkin, he gets sad and candy falls out of his sides (which is the same way we feel when we eat too much candy). Since children shouldn't consume half their daily calories in candy, the Pumpkin-O-Meter calorie counter is also a wonderful lesson on the importance of controlling their sugar intake. As children experiment with different candy combinations they learn small candy has fewer calories than large candy, and that we should all eat candy in moderation.

Post-Halloween Neighborhood Cleanup

A fun way to promote Green Halloween is to organize a morning-after neighborhood cleanup. Gather all your friends and family the morning after Halloween and take a stroll through the neighborhood to pick up loose candy wrappers or garbage on the street. This is a great family activity for young ones as it teaches the importance of responsibility, while providing an outlet for fresh air and exercise after all that candy. You can also turn the neighborhood cleanup into a fun counting game by awarding a prize to the child who picks up the most pieces of litter. For more educational and fun Green Halloween ideas and activities, visit GreenHalloween.org.

Pumpkin Math Jokes

Sue — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:51:21 +0000

Ever since I shared a few favorite math jokes a few months back, people keep asking me for new ones. And with Halloween coming, they seem to be multiplying(!) -- so here are a few more, with a seasonal flavor. If you like these pumpkin math jokes, check out our Pumpkin Math Activities Calendar.

Pumpkin Math Jokes

Q: If I had seven pumpkins on the one hand and eight pumpkins on the other, what would I have? A: Big hands!

Q: If I had five pumpkins and I gave you three, how many would I have left? A: I don't know. Q: Why not? A: In our school we do all our arithmetic in apples and oranges.

Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter? A: Pumpkin Pi! (OK, that one’s a repeat, but it’s worth repeating) I also have a few that have nothing to do with math, but my 6-year-old joke tester thought they were funny -- and hey, it’s a Halloween, so let’s have a little fun!

Q: How do you make a witch scratch? A: Just take away the W.

Q: Why did the vampire's lunch give her heartburn? A: It was a stake sandwich.

Q: What do you call a man who gets a pumpkin pie in the face? A: Desserted.

Q: What do skeletons say before eating? A: Bone appétit...

Q: When is a pumpkin not a pumpkin? A: When you drop it; then it's squash!

Q: What is a Mummies' favorite type of music? A: Wrap!! Speaking of wrap, that's all I've got-- until next Halloween!

October 5th is the Most Popular Birthday! The Birthday Paradox Explained

Tracy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:22:55 +0000

Pumpkin Birthday Cake

Studies by the National Center for Health and Statistics, and Anybirthday.com both conclude the most common birthday in North America is on October 5th. The reason? Hint: New Year's Eve. In honor of the estimated 968,000 Americans blowing out their candles in early October, the Birthday Paradox is an interesting learning exercise to help math students grasp the probabilities of a pair. Beware. Some of these statistics are well beyond the elementary "pumpkin math" exercises in this month's DreamBox Learning math activities calendar, but the little ones should still be able to walk away with the general idea of how the birthday paradox works. The birthday paradox asks the question, "what's the probability that, in a set of randomly chosen people, will any given pair share the same birthday?" We call it a "paradox" because people have a hard time assuming someone else in the general vicinity shares the same birthday. We're just too self centered. In addition, our minds have a hard time computing the power of exponents (especially if our little test subjects don't know what exponents are).

The Birthday Paradox Equation

Let's walk through this together. First of all, we need to consider what what we're solving for in this mess of number and letters. Our original question is "What's the probability a pair of people will share a birthday in a group?" To start, we need to know the size of the group. Any classroom size should work, but for this example we're using a group size of 23. Now, we can ask "what's the probability a pair of people will share a birthday in a group of 23 people?" Here comes that word "paradox" again. It's logical to assume 23 people is too small of a group to think two individuals will share the same birthday out of 365 possible days to be born. The math shows otherwise. If you're presenting this problem to a group that is a little green when it come to statistics, introduce the coin flipping experiment. When we flip a coin, we know it's a 50/50 chance that a coin flip will land on tails, but how likely will a coin land on tails 10 times in a row? You might think to divide the 50% likelihood with the 10 coin flips (.5/10), but you'd be wrong. Instead, you need to multiply the 50% likelihood to the 10^th exponent (.5^10) to equal .001 or 1/1000.

It's a one in a thousand chance that a coin flip will land on tails ten times in a row.

Asking the question of how likely it is for two people to share a birthday in a group of 23 is just like asking, "How likely will a coin land on tails at least once in 23 coin flips?" You'll make your head hurt with all the possibilities. Tails can land on the 2^nd throw. Maybe on the last throw. Maybe tails hits on every odd number. You can guess it will happen, but you don't know when.

How do we solve the coin flip problem?

You can't think about how likely the coin will land on tails without considering how unlikely the coin will land on tails. If it's less than a .1% chance that a coin will land on heads ten times in a row, much less 23 times in a row, then there's a 99.9% chance a coin will land on tails at least once in 23 tries. The trick is to subtract the chance of getting all heads from 1, and we can find the prospect of our desired outcome.

Solving the Birthday Paradox

Good, you're still with me. Back to the problem of birthdays. Just like the coin flip, let's ask how unlikely is it for a pair to share a birthday in a group of 23 people?

For the birthday paradox experiment, we also assume the following:

There are 365 days in a year (forget about those pesky leap years)
There are no twins in the group of 23

Start off by calculating how many pairs 23 people make. Since any one person out of 23 can make 22 different pairs, multiply 22 with the total number of people (23) and divide by the amount of people it takes to make a pair (2). This equals 253.

Now, you have to ask the question "how likely is it for a pair of people to not share a birthday in a year?" If a person's birthday is Oct. 5th, that means their birthday occupies 1/365 of the year. We can assume someone else can be born on any of the 364 days of a 365 day year, and not share the same birthday.

Going back to the idea of coin flips, trying to find 253 different birthdays is like 253 tails flips in a row (assuming all birthdays are independent). Use the 253 as the exponent to the total non-matching birthdays (364) over the total days of the year (365):

The chance of a birthday match out of 23 people is:

1 - 49.95% = 50.05%.

It's over 50%! Which means a group of 23 is more likely than not for two people to share a birthday.

Probability of a Pair Graph

This graph indicates the exponential growth of a probability of a pair based on the size of a group. At 57 people, the probability of a birthday match is 99%, and to reach 100%, you'll need a group of 366 people.

Now Let's Play!

Make this into a fun classroom activity by asking a class how likely it is that they share a birthday with someone else in the class. You can also change the experiment. Have the children secretly write down a number between 1 and 365, and ask them how likely is it that someone else picked the same number. If you'd like a further explanation of the birthday paradox, BetterExplained has step-by-step instructions, as well as a birthday paradox calculator. And if you have an October 5th birthday, comment below! If you had fun with this October activity, check out our Pumpkin Math Activities Calendar.

It's Here! Pumpkin Math Month and a New Calendar

Tracy — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:37:17 +0000

October is a favorite month at DreamBox Learning (sssh, don't tell the other months). We hope you'll help us celebrate it with pumpkin math activities and pumpkin jokes all month long! And we have a brand new (free) calendar filled with learning fun.

Pumpkin humor

To kick off our favorite month, here's a pumpkin joke:

Q: How do you mend a broken Jack-o-Lantern?

A: With a pumpkin patch!

OK, so maybe jokes aren't our thing. But pumpkin math activities are definitely our thing! Here's our pumpkin math activities calendar to kick off October.

Pumpkin math activities

If you're a math teacher, homeschooler, or an interested parent, have your students estimate the circumference of a pumpkin by cutting yarn into pieces they think might fit around the pumpkin. Then, sort pieces by too short, too long, and just about perfect. This helps kids learn to estimate sizes. After you do this pumpkin math activity, read It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. And don't forget to get our free math activities and holiday calendar. You'll be surprised to learn that Halloween isn't the only holiday in October. We'll bring you more cool pumpkin math activities and more all month, so check back soon!

Pumpkin Math

Beth — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:54:35 +0000

It’s almost Fall and pumpkin season is coming alive. I’ve seen signs for corn mazes, harvest festivals, and of course, Halloween candy out in the shelves at the store. I love this time of year! One thing I love to do in my classroom is explore the anatomy of pumpkins with my students. Even though it is goopy and requires a bit of clean up, kids love to dissect things. And if they’re excited to do work in class, they’re more likely to learn. I typically start the lesson by reading the book titled How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?, by Margaret McNamara.

Pumpkin math games and other fall activities

Here are some other fun ways to combine math and the pumpkin season.

Pumpkin math, literally

Get the book "How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin" by Margaret Mcnamara and follow along.
Find out if a pumpkin floats and why, or why not. What about a really large pumpkin? You'd be surprised.
Wrap a string around a pumpkin and guess the size. For extra credit figure out the diameter (hint: 3.14 x diameter = circumference).
Follow some of the fun fall activities at Math Cats.

Share your ideas for pumpkin math games and fall activities by posting your comments below.

How many seeds in a pumpkin?, by Margaret McNamara

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

This book shows how one class predicted and counted the number of seeds inside different sized pumpkins. They found that size didn’t necessarily determine the number of seeds inside. Time on the vine, number of ribs, and color all play a role in the number of seeds inside a pumpkin. Finally, they’re ready to explore the insides of a pumpkin, count the seeds, and see if their predictions are accurate. By using the counting techniques shared in the story, the students begin to explore which techniques for counting are efficient. In the story, as well as in class, the students begin to recognize that counting by 4’s is not as efficient as counting by 10’s when dealing with large numbers. It can also be fun to chart the number of ribs, color, and the number of seeds for all the pumpkins in the class to see if a pattern arises. Looking at data that was self-created is more likely to give kids have those ‘aha’ moments. It is an excellent way to help them realize that math and nature are closely linked! If you like these pumpkin math problems, check out our 2009 Pumpkin Math Activities Calendar.