Middle-schoolers Use Video Game to Reimagine Hamilton's West Harbour

Check out this CBC article on how one Hamilton school is harnessing the video game Minecraft to tackle urban planning in the city.

Practically Gifted

Thank you to Connie McGregor for sharing Bernie Beales' web resources from his workshop on Giftedness at our November PD Day.  Many of these websites are in our District Numeracy Plan and some are permanently added to the sidebar of this blog for easy use and access for teachers and students.

 

References and Resources

compiled by Bernard Beales, practicallygifted.ca
Problem of the Week:

Maths Starter of the Day (Australian)

Problem of the Week (Waterloo University)

Math Counts Problem of the Week
 

Fermi Problems:

The Math Forum

Elemath

How Many Licks? Aaron Santos, Running Press, 2009 ISBN 9780762435609

 

Math Contests:

The Maple Leaf Math Challenge 

The Caribou Math Contest

 

The Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest

 

Gauss, Pascal, Cayley, Fermat, etc. - Centre for Education in Mathematics & Computing

 

CNML (Canadian National Math League)

 

Thales, Byron-Germaine, Fibonacci, Pythagoras, etc. - Mathematica

ASMA (American Scholastic Mathematics Association

 

AMC 8, 10, 12 (American Mathematics Competitions)

 

OMO (Ontario Math Olympics)

Math Performances:

 

Math & Science Performance Festival

Webquests:

Thinkquest Student Designed Projects

 

Independent Math Projects:

Illuminations

Counter Intuitive Math Problems:

Fun Math Problems

Gifted and Talented Education

Brain Food (Lateral Thinking Puzzles)

General Math Enrichment Ideas:

NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics)
 

Hoagies' Gifted Education Page

 

OAME (Ontario Association for Mathematics Education)

NAGC (National Association for Gifted Children)

 

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

 

Prufrock Press

Figure This

Project Based Learning

Here's a website (PBLU.org) that offers ideas for project based learning.  Below is a short video that explains how one may use the website.  Thank you to Rob Robson (@robrobson) for the suggestion.

Enriching Math

Here's a new site (to me, anyway) that i came across somewhat by accident. It is called Nrich Maths (http://nrich.maths.org/public/) and it is best described on the website itself:

ABOUT NRICH

The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities can be found here.

On our website you will find thousands of our free mathematics enrichment materials (problems, articles and games) for teachers and learners from ages 5 to 19 years. All the resources are designed to develop subject knowledge, problem-solving and mathematical thinking skills. The website is updated with new material on the first day of every month. For guidance on how to find the right resources for you, go to the Help section of the site.

I tried a few of the activities, and i can definitely see how it would be an enriching experience for students. i am adding it to the website list on the right.

OAME 2011

Here i am working hard on Problem Solving for Enrichment in grades 5-8, just one of the many great workshops at OAME 2011. The package of problems i'm working on will be made available to the Numeracy Committee at our June meeting. For information on next year's conference, SO YOU CAN PUT IT ON YOUR LEARNING PLAN, please click here.