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K-6 Math in the News: Pokémon Go and Math for Kids

Are you a teacher who uses Pokémon Go? Are you looking for ways you can tap into the Pokémon Go craze to connect with your students?

Pokémon Go is the latest in the Pokémon franchise, and has broken records at the Apple iTunes store, where it is now the most-downloaded app in the first week of release in the store’s history.

But for teachers, how could the game be useful? Google as indexed over 15M pages on “Pokémon Go education”, reflecting the creative efforts of teachers thinking up ways to incorporate current trends into their curriculum.

Are you thinking of incorporating Pokémon Go into your teaching? How can enjoyment of computer games inspire our students to study math at school?

What do you think?

Will you be using Pokemon Go at all in your classroom? Do share a comment below.

Reference Articles

Main Article: August 2016: Pokémon Go in the classroom

► News articles about Pokémon Go:

► Other math-related articles about Pokémon Go:

► Education articles about Pokémon Go:

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K-6 Math in the News: Everyone CAN Succeed at Maths

What do your students believe about their abilities in mathematics? Do they say “I can do this”, or “I’ll never get this”?

Original article link: How ‘Everyone Can’ Succeed at Maths – TES UK, 6th July 2016

I’m sure all teachers know about the idea of the “self-fulfilling prophecy”: if you start off believing that you have a high achieving class, they are more likely to do well than if you believe from the star that they are a “weak” class.

This article focuses on the message that “Everyone Can” succeed at math, urging teachers and students to believe in the students’ success.

I recommend that you watch the video linked in the article, which has a really nice performance by a young girl taking the role of teacher “Miss Rose”, teaching a class of adults acting as the students:

Maths: Everyone Can from White Rose Maths Hub.

What do you think? Is simply being positive about students’ abilities and capabilities really going to make a difference to the results that they achieve? And are some people simply born “with a maths brain” and others not? Please leave a comment below; I’d love to hear what you think.

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K-6 Math in the News: Facebook Flower Math Puzzle

Have you seen this math puzzle? Do you know what the correct answer is?

Original article link: Can You Work Out This Mind-bending Flower Puzzle? – News.com Australia, 17th June 2016

If you teach math, like me, your friends probably sent you this math puzzle, thinking you’d like it “because you’re a teacher”.

As a general thing, that’s fine. In fact, I welcome math puzzles especially if they have some actual math in them, something to work out.

This puzzle looks great when you first see it, but ultimately it’s more of a tease than a proper math puzzle. In fact, I find it downright frustrating.

Why? If you’ve seen it on Facebook, a news article, or elsewhere on social media, you’ll have seen people arguing about whether the fact that the final blue flower has 4 petals, rather than the 5 on other blue flowers, makes any difference to the result.

My take on this: the question is ambiguous, and the correct answer isn’t what it appears at first.

You’ll need to watch the video above to hear my full response. Keep watching until the end of the video, where I offer an alternative math puzzle, one that has an actual, bona fide correct answer.

Think you have an answer to the flower puzzle? Do you have the answer to my square puzzle? Leave a comment below.