Andrew Jeffrey's July 2008
Newsletter
IMPORTANT: (Do NOT click ‘reply’ as I
will never get to see your email)
Instead,
please send all emails to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk
1. Welcome and feedback
2. Maths Website of the
Month- don’t miss this!
3. Maths outdoors e-book -
update
4. Numbers in colour
5. Williams Review
6. Einstein Says…
7. Travelling Far and Wide
8. Book Review – Hot Topic!
9. Maths puzzle challenge
idea
42. It’s my birthday today! Here is a small gift!
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1. Welcome!
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Dear
Friends,
Happy July!
I hope by now that reports are done and you are looking forward to a
well-earned break.
One of the things
I haven’t missed this year is report writing. Though in a perverse way I miss
it – I have even written a couple of reports for others!
Regular
subscribers will know that I have moved the newsletter from the end of the
month to the beginning. This month sees this taken to the extreme – see item 42
for why the newsletter comes out on the 1st day of the month!
Finally, I
have conducted a ‘purge’ of the subscriber list – if you were on the list
twice, I hope that you should now only receive one copy. Let me know if not. No
newsletter next month – have a break!
Please
remember that since the newsletter is
sent out automatically, hitting ‘reply’ will not work – your reply will not
reach me. I can always get emails sent to info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk
; please add this address to
your address book.
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2. Maths Website of the Month.
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My personal
recommendation this month is a tad more ‘frivolous’ than the usual fare, as we
are approaching the summer holidays (yeeees!) so I
thought I would offer you something to make you smile.
What is it?
It’s The Simpsons Maths; this has to
be seen to be believed. It transpires that many of the Simpsons writers have
mathematical backgrounds, and hence there are frequent references to ‘math’
running through many episodes, sometimes obvious but often hidden.
For example,
here is a great exchange between Homer and Michael Jackson from an episode
called ‘Stark Raving Dad’ from way back in 1991.
Michael Jackson: Homer, this is Floyd. He’s an idiot savant – give him any two
numbers and he can multiply them in his head, just like that.
Homer: OK, 5 times 9!
Floyd: 45.
Homer: Wow.
Visit http://homepage.smc.edu/nestler_andrew/SimpsonsMath.htm as there are even ideas for using
some of the quotes in the classroom! (Keep an eye out for a joke about Fermat’s
Last Theorem!)
Huge thanks
to the lovely Fran Watson for pointing me in the direction of this hilarious
website. (Congratulations to AST Fran who recently became a cover girl by the
way, though before you get a false image I should say that the cover in
question was in fact ‘Primary Mathematics’).
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3. Maths outdoors e-book - update
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I have had a
good response to my request last month for ideas for this forthcoming e-book,
but I am still after any more great ideas. Please send any ideas you have to me
at info@andrewjeffrey.co.uk. DON’T REPLY to this; it will never
reach me. Thanks to all who have sent in ideas so far, but I really want this
to be a collegiate effort; it is a not-for-profit venture that will be given
away free to anyone who wants it.
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4. Numbers as Colours
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I mentioned
last month that I had received an email from a subscriber whose teenage son saw
numbers as colours, and that my wife had come across this before. It is
commonly known as ‘synesthesia’. It turns out that far more children
that I realised actually think in this way.
As promised,
here are a few fascinating weblinks if anyone is
interested:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4375977.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/hearingcolours.shtml
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070724113711.htm
There
may well be someone in your class who thinks this way; I’d be fascinated to
know.
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5. Williams Review of
Primary Mathematics
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Most of you
will be aware that a huge review of Primary mathematics has taken place, under
the guidance of Sir Peter Williams, Chancellor of Leicester University. The
whole process has been characterized by Sir Peter’s openness and willingness to
listen to teachers. Probably the key finding most relevant to readers of this
newsletter will be the proposal, accepted by the government, to put a maths
specialist into every primary school over the next five years. The nitty-gritty
will follow, but speaking personally I think this can only be a good thing,
provided the training of these specialists is effective. Watch this space – I
will keep you up to date on any progress.
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6. Einstein Says…
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Finally, as
promised, I am moving away from the great man in order to bring you another
inspirational quote for teachers everywhere. This quote is one of the wisest I
have heard, and is so relevant for teachers. It comes from one of the 19th
century’s most famous Prime Ministers.
“The greatest good you can do
for another is not just to share
your riches, but to reveal to him
his own.”
Benjamin
Disraeli
I really
like this, as it moves us away from the unhelpful idea that the teacher is the
all-singing, all-dancing deliverer of all knowledge, and focuses on the
‘drawing out’, which Latin scholars would of course correctly remind us is the
true meaning of education. Thanks, Ben.
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7. Travelling Far and Wide
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I have spent
a record amount of time away from home during June – a week in Bristol and a
week in Yorkshire. This has been hard on our family, though we have worked hard
to make up for lost time when we are altogether. On the plus side, I was made
to feel welcome wherever I went, and have come to the realization that the
North-South divide is not financial or political, it’s linguistic…I received
three of the weirdest compliments I have ever had from secondary kids in
Wakefield and Castleford! See my latest blog for details:
www.andrewjeffrey.co.uk/blog.asp
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8. Book Review – Hot
Topics, the Olympics
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Until now, I
have been reviewing old favourites. This month sees a
radical departure in two ways. Firstly, I have only had this wonderful book for
a couple of weeks. Secondly, it is about far more than just maths. For some
time now, I have been planning in the back of my mind to write a maths text
book based around the Olympic Games, aimed at KS1 and KS2. So, when this offering
from Peter Riley landed on my desk I was very interested. It is fabulous –
there are pages of really ‘doable’ ideas for all infant and junior teachers:
activities, investigations, plenty of good maths but also, history, music,
geography, PSHE, English (sorry I still call it that) and pages of brilliant
resources. They even include lesson plans and copymasters,
but this is not just a book of lessons; it’s actually really informative!
Scholastic have beaten me to it to a degree, though
this is very cross-curricular, and my book is really aimed at coming out in
time for the 2012 Olympics. I think this is an awesome book – check out the
details and review here: http://teachershop.scholastic.co.uk/products/item/4646,
(but don’t buy it there. It is cheaper elsewhere on the web!)
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9. A Cunning Maths
Puzzle for your bored Y6!
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This was
inspired by something called ‘The Interrupted Bridge Game’ that I read on the
back cover of a Martin Gardner book which I borrowed from a friend (I haven’t
opened the book to see the solution yet!), and is adapted from it. I have come
up with a puzzle for you to ask the staff and pupils in your school to solve.
It seems impossible, but is fiendishly simple.
For the
puzzle, you need 20 counting objects in a bag. These do not have to be
multilink –compare bears, for example, or counters, pencils, dice, playing
cards, etc.
Also, you
need four containers marked A,B,C and D. These must be
opaque, and have a slotted lid into which counters can be dropped. There must
be no way of knowing how many counters are in each container.
Now, you say
that you are going to take counters, one at a time from the bag, and place them
into the containers A,B,C and D. You place one in A,
one in B, one in C, one in D, one in A, one in B, and so on, always in that
order. One child leaves the room. You continue sharing out the counters and
after a random number have been dealt, you stop.
You now
present the challenge. The wanderer returns. Handing them the bag, you ask them
to continue sharing out the counters. Their challenge, however, is to ensure
that at the end each container has exactly the same number of counters!
They must
not know the number of counters in any of the containers, or left in the bag at
any time (though for them to do so once they get to fewer than four counters
would actually be a clever methodology, yet even this is unnecessary; there is
a simpler way!) Also, they do not know how many counters you dealt while they
were out of the room, or where you stopped dealing. Can you get it? Or can
they? Can it be done?
I have
decided to let the solution hang until the next issue (September). If you
really are desperate to know, email me or buy me a beer and I will give you a
hint.
You can
adapt the game of course; perhaps you could use cards in envelopes rather than
bulky boxes. Whatever works for you. I’d be interested
to hear how your pupils (and colleagues) get on with this piece of mathematical
thinking, and what problem-solving strategies they come up with…
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42. It’s my Birthday today – here’s a present for you!
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Today, July
1st 2008, I am 42. No longer in my prime (41).
Fans of Douglas
Adams will know that this is a highly significant number in the history of the
universe (it is of course the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything).
To celebrate
I am offering everyone a huge 50%
discount on my product “I
Wish I’d Said That!”, full of 40 of my favourite motivational quotations
,if you order the electronic or CD ROM
versions. (The laminated pack is just
too expensive and time-consuming to halve, sorry, but I am still offering a £10
discount on this version.)
This is an
exclusive discount to newsletter subscribers only; simply send the reduced
amount by cheque (or PayPal to ajeffrey@freeuk.com)
(i.e. just £30 for the laminated
set, £10 for the CD-ROM, and £7.50 for the pdf downloads.) Please
mention that you are a subscriber when ordering, so that I know you are
eligible for the lower price. The lower price will NOT be advertised on the
website; this is just a ‘thank you’ to you folks for reading your way through
this every month! Please note that this offer is only valid until midnight on
31st July – from 1st August the normal price will apply.
Until Next
Time, AJ x
(Please note
that there will be no newsletter in August – let’s all get some rest. Well, you
can, anyway – during August I am working on an exciting project for a
publisher, but until the contract is signed I probably shouldn’t say much more;
further news in September.)
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