The Twelve Days of Mathematics for Christmas: Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of the Twelve Days of Mathematics for Christmas:

One of my grandsons’ favorite Christmas songs is the Twelve Days of Christmas. In honor of this song I am creating The Twelve Days of Mathematics for Christmas. There are activities for K-3. Intermediate – MS (grade 4 – grade 7), and Secondary (Grade 8 –Grade 12) and correlated to the number of the day. Check below for the links to the FREE resources for both TES US and TES UK.
The Twelve Days of Mathematics
Day 2: Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

We move to the number 2.

The Archimedes’ Laboratory: archimedes lab

http://www.archimedes-lab.org/numeral2.html has several tables that can be shared to continue the conversations about the development of our current number system. One table of particular interest are the Early Egyptian Fractions figures. An interesting study of the denominators which are composed of powers of 2 is shared. Just showing the picture as a prompt for students to make meaning and form questions or reflect one the symbols used in figure 2 affords the opportunity for authentic writing in mathematics.

The activities I have put together for the number 2 also offer the opportunity to employ one of my favorite strategies for teaching mathematics – the use of trade books! Check out an earlier blog when I had just finished my first eBook: http://bearhosting.com/~tljconsulting/mathematical-literacy-new-e-book/ . Since then I have completed eBooks for each of the grade bands that can be found on TES as well as an eTraining on Using Trade Books in the Mathematics Classroom. See links below.

Beginning mathematics encounter the number 2 when counting one more than 1. Young mathematicians always enjoy doubling numbers and skip counting by two. Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong provides a delightful background for young children to investigate the power of doubling (or multiplying by two). The classic children’s story, One Grain of Rice by Demi, offers a story for the season while also looking at the power of doubling and using exponents as it is suggested for the intermediate and middle school activities that include several opportunities for writing. The King’s Chessboard by David Birch provides a setting for upper middle school and high school students to begin exploring exponential growth and exponential functions as well as building functional fluency using multiple representations. To read more about function fluency see my blog post here: http://bearhosting.com/~tljconsulting/functional-fluency/ .

As an extension, students who have an interest in computers would enjoy a look at another powerful application of 2 – The Binary System, where the digit 2 does not even exist.

The History of the Binary System: http://www.cut-the-knot.org/do_you_know/BinaryHistory.shtml has a very accessible look at the history and can be found on one of my favorite mathematics websites: Cut the Knot: http://www.cut-the-knot.org/manifesto/index.shtml . If you have not explored this website spend some time over the holiday break to do so. Share it with your students and let them explore and see what they find to come back and report on after their break.

And of course, students can always discuss two, the only even prime number as they study prime numbers. One of the oldest websites: The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive from the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, has a nice article on the history of prime numbers: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/Prime_numbers.html . The site is a repository for all things mathematics as well as a lot for science. Again, if you have not had a chance to visit and explore, please take some time to do so.

The activities suggested for the three grade bands can be used in large group, small group – learning station or center, or as bell ringers, journal prompts, etc. Glance at each of the activities as some suggestions would be just as applicable to the other grade bands.

Enjoy the second day of Mathematics and check back tomorrow for Day 3!

NOTE: A few teachers asked about the weekend and suggested that they would be in school for at least 12 more days, so on Friday I will post activities for Day 5 for Monday, December 7 and on Friday, December 11^th I will post activities for Day 10 for Monday, December 14^th. If you want to use them earlier just email me personally at TammyJones@TLJConsultingGroup.com.

Also, if you would like to view the recording of the eTraining on using Trade Books in the Mathematics Classroom for FREE, email me personally BEFORE December 15^th and we will send you the link.