The Googol Learning Halloween Newsletter Inspiration, Fun

Happy Halloween!
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The Googol Learning Halloween Newsletter
Inspiration, Fun Activities and Ideas to Encourage
Further Learning - for parents, teachers and kids!
WELCOME
Hello everyone. I’d like to welcome the many new subscribers who have joined
us. We plan to send out a newsletter every second month. Please email
[email protected] if you have any ideas you would like to share. If you
are not currently subscribed to this newsletter and would like to subscribe please
visit http://googolpower.com/newsletter.php.
CONTENTS
10 Great Ways to Ensure Your Child’s Success in Math
Encouraging Thinking Skills in Young Children
Crazy 4 Math Winners
Halloween Math
Halloween Joke
Online Halloween Games
Chocolate Math Trick
More on Mazes
Inspiration
Free Stuff From The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
Clickschooling
Math Moments
“Massive” FREE Online Educational Music Station
Googol Power News
Googol Learning Newsletter Oct 2005
© Googol Learning
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10 GREAT WAYS TO ENSURE YOUR CHILD’S SUCCESS IN MATH
In today’s information age, data is doubling faster than ever before. Kilobytes,
megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes – I can’t keep up! The math curriculum in
schools is much larger, yet schools are required to teach it with increasingly
limited resources. This leaves students and parents with the important task of
supplementing education at home. Parents truly need to be partners in the
learning process to ensure that our children stay ahead.
Parents, you do not need to be a mathematician to give your child the gift of
mathematics. You only need to guide them on the right path. It is never too early
or too late to start enjoying math at home with your child.
read more…
http://www.googolpower.com/parents/articles/10Ways10-16BCWEBR.pdf
ENCOURAGING THINKING SKILLS IN YOUNG CHILDREN
Cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”)- René Descartes
There are many current buzz words used by educators to describe the concept of
thinking skills - critical thinking, Socratic thinking, creative thinking, higher-order
thinking, logical thinking, problem solving skills, etc… and there doesn’t seem to
be any universally agreed upon definition. However, the one thing I’ve found is
that they all contain important aspects of learning that we want our children to
grow up with.
read more
http://www.googolpower.com/parents/articles/Thinking.pdf
CRAZY 4 MATH WINNERS
The 2005 Crazy 4 Math contest was a great success. We had entries from all
over the world. You can check out the finalists and the winning entries at
http://crazy4math.googolpower.com/
We are already getting entries for 2006 so spread the word!
Here are a few comments from some of the finalists on why they enjoy math.
I enjoy math because it's a challenge and it's a fun part of games. I really enjoy playing
board games, card games and other math games. My grade six teacher has us play
math games almost every day in class. Shayne B. Age 10
I enjoy math because it is fun to learn and it is interesting to be able to see that there is
math all around us. In fact it was my sister who made me more interested in math. She
had some fun math games to play with me. Yifeng .W Age 8.
Googol Learning Newsletter Oct 2005
© Googol Learning
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I enjoy math because it is everywhere I look! [geometry in shapes, angels in buildings,
prices in stores, time on a clock, the list goes on!!!!!] I guess I started to like math when I
started 4-H. I was doing okay in it at school and I was getting lots of practice doing
record books! Happy Math!! Kyle S. Age 12
Remember, any child can become crazy for math. Find games and activities that
make learning fun. Math does not need to be boring! A solid foundation early on
will set the framework for developing math skills that can be used all of your
child’s life.
HALLOWEEN MATH
Joke
Q: What do you get if you divide the
circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its
diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi!
Pi to Music
Speaking of Pi- Here’s a site that puts Pi to notes of the musical scale.
http://www.avoision.com/experiments/pi10k/pi10k.html
More Halloween Math
Here are my kids favorite’s this year!
Grade 2 Addition Worksheets
http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/2ndgrade/halloween.htm
Grade 5 Dracula’s castle –word problems with some scary pictures
http://everyschool.org/u/vinci/thisweek/halloweenmath.html
Spooky Online Games- my kids loved these!
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/halloween/math-games/#
Chocolate Math
1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have
chocolate (more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1755 ....
If you haven't, add 1754.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.
You should have a three digit number
The first digit of this was your original number
(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).
Googol Learning Newsletter Oct 2005
© Googol Learning
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The next two numbers are
YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!!!!!)
Special thanks to cousin Jill for sending this in!
Children love math tricks and it’s a great way to practice arithmetic. You can also
demonstrate the algebraic equation and how the trick works. Encourage your
child to make up their own tricks once they understand the principal.
MORE ON MAZES
So did any children learn more about mazes from the maze generator mentioned
in the last newsletter? (http://www.mazeworks.com/mazegen/index.htm)
Children can get ideas on how they could draw their own maze using graph
paper and an eraser. Watching this maze also demonstrates how you can
always solve a maze (hint- keep to the left). You can apply this principal to other
mazes.
Recently my children have been enthralled with mazes.
Here are two sites with super mazes that are hand drawn and can be printed..
Amazing Art
http://www.amazeingart.com/free-mazes.html
Jody Halls hand drawn mazes
http://www.mazoons.com/Mazes.htm
For the history and mathematics of mazes check out:
History of Mazes
http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/
Through Mazes to Mathematics
http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~tony/mazes/
INSPIRATION
Wisdom begins in wonder
-Socrates
More inspirational quotes are at our Learning Lady site
http://www.thelearninglady.com/quotes.html
Another way to keep inspired with family learning is to read about what other
families are doing. Check out articles from learning and homeschooling
magazines. They are full of wonderful ideas. And you don’t need to be a
“homeschooler.” Remember we are all raising and teaching our children.
Googol Learning Newsletter Oct 2005
© Googol Learning
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The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
One of my favorite magazines is The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.
www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com
http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/subscribe/promo_subscribe.php
Their magazine is available by subscription. They have a great offer for new subscribers where
you get over $300 in FREE gifts and the shipping is paid for.
They also have a great free blog available at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com
Clickschooling
Diane Flynn Keith, author of Carschooling, has a free service called
“ClickSchooling” for families. She sends a short daily email with a recommended
website each day of the week. You can see the archives and sign-up by visiting
http://www.homefires.com/free.html -- and click on the Yahoo Groups button.
Math Moments
Children’s author, David Schwartz has posted new articles from his column Math
Moments on our Learning Lady Site. (Thank-you David!)
http://www.thelearninglady.com/maths.html
Massive Radio Station
This online free radio station plays math and science songs, all the time!
It’s geared more towards older students and adults but we still enjoy it.
Special thanks to Greg Crowther, a biologist in Seattle (and musician who
worked on two educational albums –“Muscles and Magnets” and “My
Dissertation”)
http://www.live365.com/stations/trappedinlab/
GOOGOL POWER NEWS
Googol Power is very excited to be working
with our new distributors in Canada - Pacific Music,
Warner Music Canada and McIntyre Media.
The latest album Addition Celebration was a 2005 winner for Best Educational
Album in the Children’s Music Web Awards. Congratulations to the Googol
Power team. And I have to say all the puppets are very excited!
Googol Power is on TV! The Googol Power music videos are playing this fall on
SCN.
Googol Learning Newsletter Oct 2005
© Googol Learning
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Our new e-book Nena’s Math Force will be available for newsletter subscribers
to preview for free next month. Watch for the email with a link to it. It’s a
wonderful book to inspire your child or students to learn the basics.
Happy Family Learning!
Feel free to forward this newsletter on to any friends who may enjoy reading it.
Send me an email if you have any ideas to share for our next newsletter.
[email protected]
This newsletter comes out every two months. If you do not wish to receive it any
longer please reply back to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject.
Googol Power www.googolpower.com “There’s googols to learn!”
© 2005 Googol Learning
Googol Learning Newsletter Oct 2005
© Googol Learning
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