Welcome! I Love Math Day is coming up on February 14. In the weeks between now and then, Middle School students will work in small teams to solve challenging problems. They will be given one week to solve each problem and prepare a solution to submit to the judges.
By way of this blog we encourage all school families to read the problems and join in the fun. We hope parents and students at all grades will find ways to talk about these problems, puzzle over them, and enjoy the pursuit together. The first problem for this year asks students to try out a magic trick beginning with a three digit number. If you know a middle school student at Mustard Seed, you should ask her to show you the trick. It is very impressive! You can read it below.
Please come back to this blog often over the next month or so. We will post a new problem or two every week. We will also share news about I Love Math Day. Along the way, you will learn more about mathematics at Mustard Seed, and how we encourage students to find the beauty and joy of math. You will also find helpful hints about how to help your child when he is stuck. Mathematicians get stuck all the time, so we can learn from them.
Feel free to peruse older posts to see what went on last year as part of the school's I Love Math tradition. You will see some of the creative solutions to problems students worked on in the past. You will see other related topics that the school community was focused on last year.
Parents and school families are invited to work on all the I Love Math problems, and turn in a solution if they like. Please email Mr. Lawrence with any solutions. We give prizes for really extraordinary work! Also please email Mr. Lawrence with any questions or comments (glawrence@mustardseedschool.org).
Parents and school families are invited to work on all the I Love Math problems, and turn in a solution if they like. Please email Mr. Lawrence with any solutions. We give prizes for really extraordinary work! Also please email Mr. Lawrence with any questions or comments (glawrence@mustardseedschool.org).
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A Magic Trick
Amaze Your Friends
Pick any three-digit number.
Then turn it into a six-digit number by writing it
twice. (For example, if your three-digit
number is 289, your six-digit number is 289,289).
I don’t know what number you have created, but I think it
is divisible by 13. Am I right? Check and see.
After you divide by 13, I bet the quotient is divisible by
11. Check this out.
And I bet that quotient is not a prime number. In fact, I bet it is divisible by 7. Correct?
What do you notice about the result? I found your original number, right?
Pick another three-digit number and repeat. Does it work now?
