1.
Welcome and feedback
2.
Conferences and Lectures
3.
Come on England!
4.
Website of the month
5.
Top Tip – Nets.
6.
Biggest giveaway EVER coming next month!
1.
Welcome to the June
2010 Newsletter!
Dear
Maths Friends- it’s June already, and I was touched by many emails this month saying
how much you enjoyed May’s newsletter. From this month onwards, if it opens
oddly in your email programme as some have reported, you can click the link at
the top to read it on the web. And don’t forget that you can access all the old
newsletters FREE by clicking here.
Lots
of people were very interested in the ‘cubes’ item. My favourite response was
from Chris Smith who quite rightly reminded me that I should have said
‘perfect’ cubes, but also proudly emailed that he had a proof that all whole
numbers were ‘at most 3
away from a multiple of four !?!’ Nice, though it would still
amaze a few people I suspect!
2.
Conferences and
Lectures
I
have a number of speaking engagements during June, and if you are planning to
be in attendance, it would be lively to say hello in person to the ever-growing
band of subscribers. So if you are in Peterborough for the Maths Conference on
June 10th, or at the NAGC day in London on 12th, or the IAPS
conference in Norfolk on 15th, or the East Sussex Primary Maths
Conference on 25th, please come and say hi!
3. Come on England!
It
was gratifying to receive such positive feedback about the World Cup
Mathematics item last month. I would just add a word of gloom – lots of
otherwise very smart companies have offered money-back deals on purchases, should
England win the cup next month. Ask your students what that tells them about
our chances…even our own manager is backing Argentina! Or maybe that’s just a
bit of psychology. Whichever, it must throw up some interesting mathematical
discussion around probability and expectation.
4. Website of the month:
You will love this. It’s a fabulously simple yet frustratingly addictive game: www.alientiles.com. I don’t want to say too much about it for fear of over-complicating it, but I can say with some confidence that it will appeal to mathematicians of ALL ability levels!
Here is the link again: www.alientiles.com
5. Top Tip: Nets!
All
football fans are hoping to see nets bulging over the coming weeks, but many
children struggle with spatial awareness and thus find nets a difficult topic.
This means that they will also have little joy with the concept of surface
area, so here is top tip number 21 from ‘100 Top Tips for Top Maths Teachers:
“For children who have difficulty grasping the concept of nets, here’s something to try. Give them some simple 3-D shapes and some sheets of gift wrap. Tell them that their challenge is to cut out the smallest possible piece of wrapping paper that completely covers the shape. No overlaps or tabs are allowed. Bingo – you have a net. The alternative definition of a net thus becomes: ‘the smallest piece of wrapping paper that could be used to wrap this shape’. Of course you will need to specify that the paper must be a continuous piece, not joined at just a corner, etc. It helps to buy sheets of cheap gift wrap; this also makes for a good display.”
If you like this tip, there are
99 more to be found here.
6. Biggest giveaway EVER coming next month!
Don’t
forget – July’s news will contain details of a very special FREE offer for
subscribers only, courtesy of HP Calculators, but by the time it is published
it will be too late for others to join and claim it! And hopefully there is
other more personal news on the way too! AJx
That’s it
for this month - thanks yet again for being a subscriber, and remember, if you
enjoy the newsletter, please encourage others to sign up by entering their
email address at http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/newsletter.asp.
If they do
so before the 1st July they too will qualify for the free offer.
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