After several months off, I am finally returning. As long as Blogger and I can peacefully co-exist, I promise to resume regular posts.
Since I have been asked several times over the past two weeks for sources of math enrichment, today I post about math enrichment resources.
I will start with a shameless plug for my own math page, which can be found here. On this page you can find resources for young children, including everyday math around the home, baking with children, instructions for some math manipulatives you can make yourself from items you probably have already, and some strategy games you can also make yourself. There are also links to more advanced resources, including topics such as topology, tesselations, magic squares, Fibonacci & other sequences, computer programing, geometry, quantum math, math contests, and much more.
Another valuable resource for students working at grade 4 level and up is the CEMC (Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing) site. This is run from the University of Waterloo, and these are the people who bring you the Gauss, Pascal, Cayley, Fermat, Fryer, Galois, Hypatia, and Euclid Contests.
Past contests, along with solutions can be found here.
Online math games and resources from the CEMC can be found here.
Khan Academy offers free online instructional videos on a wide range of mathematical topics, along with online problems. These allow anyone to follow a self-guided course of instruction. If you log in to a free account, you can track your progress and view suggested subsequent topics to explore. Each video is 3-5 minutes in length. Topics range from basic operations to post-graduate topics and are ideal for all ages and levels.
For kids who want to learn to create their own video games, or just learn to program in general, Scratch from MIT is a child-friendly drag-and-drop program that introduces basic commands and can become highly addictive for kids and adults alike.
If you are like me and would like to limit the amount of time you and your children spend staring at screens, the following books might be of interest:
Big Ideas for Small Mathematicians &
Big Ideas for Growing Mathematicians Ann Kajander
Math for Smarty Pants Marilyn Burns
Math Games for Middle School Mario George Salvadori
Mathematics Made Simple, 6th Ed. Thomas Cusick
Chaos James Gleick
Unfortunately, my list lacks strong book-based math for the high-school level and beyond. Do you know of any good math enrichment offered in book form for these levels? Please add them to the comments.
Additional educational resources, sorted by subject: http://greensim.com/lemonade/Educational.html
