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Here's a Recipe for a Homemade Frozen Treat for Those Hot Summer Days



June always brings the first day of summer. This year it was on June 21st. I'm not sure where you live, but I live in Kansas, and each day, it gets hotter and hotter! On a hot day, when you have been outside, there is nothing better than an ice cold treat. For years, I have made homemade Popsicles, first for my children and now for my grandchildren. I thought I would share the quick and easy recipe with you. (I know this might be considered the "far side" of math, but recipes do contain measurement and sometimes, even fractions!)



Popsicle Recipe - Will make 18


1 small package of Jello (any flavor)  
Berry Blue is our favorite!
As you can see, four my grandchildren like the Berry Blue.

1/2 cup sugar
2 cups boiling water
2 cups cold water

Boil the water. Add the boiling water to the sugar and the small package of Jello. Stir until all the Jello is dissolved. This takes about two minutes. Add the cold water and stir again.

Pour into three sets of Tupperware Popsicle Makers. If you don't have these (I'm not sure they are available anymore), use Popsicle molds found in stores. or use ice cube trays.

Place in the freezer until hardened. Eat and enjoy just like my grandchildren do!


Why Do We Call Our Number System Base Ten? Many of My College Students Don't Know!

Don't you love tests where you ask a question which you believe everyone will get correct, and then find out it just isn't so?  I gave my algebra college students a pretest to see what they knew and didn't know.  One of the first questions was:  Why is our number system called Base Ten?  This is an extremely important concept as it reveals what they know about place value.  Below are some of the answers I received.

1)  It is called Base Ten because we have ten fingers.  (Yikes! If that is so, should we include our toes as well?)

2)  It is called Base Ten because I think you multiply by ten when you move past the decimal sign.  (Well, sort of.  You do multiply by ten when you move to the left of the decimal sign, going from the ones place, to the tens place, to the hundreds place, etc.)

3)  I think it is called Base Ten because it's something we use everyday.  (Really????)

Enough!  It is called Base Ten because we use ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) to write all of the other numbers.  Each digit can have one of ten values: any number from 0 through 9. When the value reaches 9, just before 10, it starts over at zero again.  (Notice the pattern below.)

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, etc.


In addition, each place is worth ten times more than the last. Ten is worth ten times more than 1, and 1,000 is ten times more than 100. The pattern continues infinitely both ways on a number line.

The decimal point allows for the place value to continue in a consistent pattern with numbers smaller than one. As we move to the right of the decimal point, each place is divided by ten to get to the next place value. One hundredth is one tenth divided by ten, and one thousandth is one hundredth divided by ten. The pattern goes on infinitely.

100's, 10's, 1's . 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001, 0.00001, etc.

Since all mathematics is based on patterns, this should not be a new revelation. Perhaps on the post-test, my students will omit the fingers and instead rely on patterns to answer the questions!

Using the Periodic Table to Create Science Bulletin Boards


Only $4.00
As many of you know, my husband teaches middle school science. He has never been one to do bulletin boards, never has been and never will be. My daughter (also a teacher) and I usually construct them for him. For many months now, I have been looking for individual tiles of the periodic table.  I saw a bulletin board on Pinterest (one of my favorite places to gather ideas) that I wanted to recreate for my husband's science lab. I finally turned to Teachers Pay Teachers (where I should have gone in the first place) and asked in the Forum if anyone had such an item. I found that The Triple Point had just what I was looking for. It was a set containing 118 images of Periodic Table tiles, one for each of the 118 elements. Since the resource was only $4.00, I purchased and downloaded it immediately.

After copying the individual tiles onto card stock and laminating them for durability, I laid out the bulletin board (see below). To be honest, my husband did staple everything onto the board as well as arrange the other items. Didn't he do a great job?


In case you can't read the meme in the middle, it says, "That will be $5.00 for the Electrons; the Neutrons are Free of Charge." After all, every classroom needs a little bit of humor!

A Dinner Dilemma - Using Math to Solve How Many Bites a Child Must Eat at Dinner

Using Math to Solve
How Many Bites a
Child Must Eat
Being a grandparent lets you try some new discipline methods that you never thought of as a parent. My grandchildren don't always like what I serve for dinner (Unbelievable, isn't it?); so, many times some food is left on their plates. My children want their children to at least take a bite of everything on their plate which often times feels like a monumental task for our grandchildren. The solution? I have an oversized sponge die on hand for such occasions. The child who doesn't want to eat something rolls the die, and the number that comes up is how many bites they must take before dessert is served. Now, the child must argue with the die and not the parent or me! (It's difficult to argue with an inanimate object.)

Besides taking care of a dinner dilemma, my grandchildren are learning to subitize sets. (Oh, there's the math part of this article!) Since there are no numbers on the die, only dots, the child must count the dots to find out the number. Surprisingly, even the youngest are learning to recognize the dot patterns and can state the number of dots without counting. This indicates they are learning to subitize sets, a necessary prerequisite to memorizing the math facts, especially the multiplication tables. If you aren't sure what subitizing sets means, go back and read my blog posting entitled Can't Memorize Those Dreaded Math Facts. In the meantime, enjoy a new way to enjoy dinner because it is pretty dicey!

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$3.35

You might like a math game that uses dice. It is called Bug Ya and can be purchased at my TPT store. Three games are included in the four page math resource packet. One is for addition and subtraction; the second is for multiplication, and the third game involves the use of money. The second and third games may involve subtraction with renaming and addition with regrouping based on the numbers that are used. All the games have been developed to extend the recall of facts through playful and intelligent practice. Be sure and download the preview.