MATH MEMORIES



MAGIC SQUARES

Magic Squares are a combination of squares with numbers in each square, and the sum of the numbers in all the rows, columns and diagonals are equal. Magic Squares are very easy, and they are fun. Here is a sample.

816
357
492

Here are some links to Magic Square pages:

http://forum.swarthmore.edu/alejandre/magic.square.html
http://www.auburn.edu/~harshec/WWW/MagicSquare.html

Claudia Hapenciuc





IDITAROD MATH


My name is Sara Epstein and I am in Mrs. Krupnick's 4th grade class at Newman Elementary School. My class and I studied the Iditarod Sled Dog Race and we learned it is a hard race from Anchorage to Nome. You need to help your dogs get ready for a long time. As we learned about the race, we did a lot of math. We used tangrams to make Iditarod shapes. We did Iditarod Logic Problems. You get clues and you have to put the sled dogs in the right order. Here is a example of the problems:

Granite, Fidget, Mousey, Flopsey, and Jack are sled dogs in the same team. Using the clues below, determine each dog's position.

Clues:

1. Flopsey is between Fidget and Mousey
2. Neither jack nor Fidget is the wheel dog
3. Granite is furthest from the sled
4. The dog with the shortest name is right behind the lead dog.

(This problem is from The Great Race to Nome, Learning Works, 1995)

Sara Epstein

We also wrote word problems about the Iditarod.
Here is a sample:

Stacey gets 3 new dogs a day. How many would she have in 17 days? If she feeds each dog 2 pounds of food a day, how much food would she need each day?

Justin Williams

Here are some Iditarod links:

http://www.cobleskill.edu/schools/mcs/es/lpacket.htm
http://www.alaskanet.com/iditarod/facts.html






THE KING'S CHESSBOARD

We read a story called The King's Chessboard by David Birch. It is about a king that wanted to reward his wise man. The man didn't want anything, but the king insisted. So the wise man decided he wanted a grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, and he wanted the amount doubled every day for each of the 64 squares. After reading this story, we did a follow-up math activity. We had a paper with 64 squares that were put together like a chessboard. We had to write a number 1 in the first square and in the next square, we had to double that amount and show how we did that. Then, in the next square, we had to double that amount of rice, and we had to show how we did that. We kept doubling and showing our work until we finished the whole chessboard. It wasn't easy doubling because soon the numbers got bigger and bigger. We had to use a calculator to make sure we got the right numbers.
Of course, we could not use the calculator for all of the 64 squares, so we just calculated ourselves. This wasn't easy either. Just one mistake, and we would have to start all over again. After this, we compared our final numbers to other kids' numbers. Then we weighed a cup of rice to estimate how much each day's rice would weigh. When we were done, we brought chessboards to school and played a game called Knight's Tour. To play , you need a chessboard and two knights,. You place your knight where it should go in a game of chess. Each player will take a turn going in an "L" shape trying to go to every square once. You can't go into a square twice! We kept track of our moves by writing them down on a chessboard paper. Some people were able to finish, but others were not.

Crystal Martinez
Jeremiah Cortez

Here is a link to a page about Knight's Tour:

http://www.mathpro.com/math/puzzles/unsolvedMathProblems/Problem7.html



To return to Karen Krupnick's 4th Grade Gate Class home page

e-mail address: kkrupnic@cyberg8t.com