Math Games for Middle School: Challenges and Skill-Builders for Students at Every Level

Math GAMES FOR Middle School

Challenges and Skill-Builders for Students at Every Level

MARIO SALVADORI and Joseph P. Wright

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Salvadori, Mario George, 1907-1997

    Math games for middle school: challenges and skill-builders for students at

every level / Mario Salvadori and Joseph P. Wright.

          p. cm.

     Summary: Uses explanations, word problems, and games to cover some mathematical topics that middle school students need to know, including the invention of numerical notations, basic arithmetical operations, measurements, geometry, graphs, and probability.

     ISBN 978-1-55652-288-8

     1. Mathematics—Study and teaching (Middle school) 2. Games in mathematics

education [1. Mathematics. 2. Mathematics—Problems, exercises, etc.]

I. Wright, Joseph P. 1939-. II. Title.

QA135.5.S233 1998

510’.71’2—dc21                                                                             97-51422

                                                                                                               CIP

                                                                                                               AC

© 1998 by Mario Salvadori and Joseph P. Wright

All rights reserved

Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-55652-288-8

Printed in the United States of America

To Maia and Daniel, who discovered big numbers at age two.

Preface

This book was written

Because I hated math in school and it took a Ph.D. to make me love it;

Because math is as beautiful as poetry and as useful as water;

Because children are not retarded adults; while, sometimes, adults behave like retarded children;

Because in our country even intelligent people boast that they hate mathematics and they will never understand it.

and

To make it easier for teachers to teach math and for students to learn it;

To show our students that math is a fascinating human invention;

To satisfy the growing demand of our culture for more and more advanced math, science, and technology;

And finally

To thank all my students, from kindergarten to Ph.D.s, who for 64 years have given me the joy of explaining to them what mathematics really is.

—Mario Salvadori

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my deep gratitude to:

Joe Wright, a first-rate mathematician and real friend who has read the typescript of this book, patiently prepared the solutions for the problems in each Math Camp, and done all the illustrations on the computer. I hereby thank him for his help and exonerate him for any and all mistakes due to me.

My wife Carol, who translated my English-Italian into pure American.

Dr. Lorraine Whitman, the executive director of the Salvadori Educational Center, for her editorial help.

Mr. Bennett Viseltear for his editorial suggestions and his patience in typing the early versions of this book.

Linda Matthews, master editor, and her able staff at Chicago Review Press, for their skill and dedication.

Tracey Wright, curriculum developer at TERC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, for her editorial help.

Ms. Caroline Daviews, mathematics teacher, and Mrs. Evelyn Wiesfield, director of the Booker T. Washington Minischool, and Mr. Jules Linden, the superb principal of the Booker T. Washington Magnet School 54 in District 3 of the New York City Board of Education, for their support of my lectures in their school for many terms.

And last but not least, the sixth- and seventh-grade students of the Booker T. Washington Minischool for their enthusiasm and their creative suggestions.

Contents

Chapter One

The Invention of Numbers

What Happened 20,000 Years Ago

Abstraction

Counting

International Counting Symbols

Positional Shorthand

Exponential Shorthand

Math Camp 1

The Binary Number System

Math Camp 2

Chapter Two

Adding, Multiplying, Subtracting, and Dividing Numbers

Addition

Math Camp 3

Multiplication

Math Camp 4

Subtraction

Math Camp 5

Division

Math Camp 6

Chapter Three

More Operations on Numbers

The Number Line

Math Camp 7

Exponents

Math Camp 8

Roots

Math Camp 9

Fractions

Operations on Fractions

Math Camp 10

Working with Negative Numbers

Math Camp 11

Estimating and Rounding Off

Math Camp 12

Chapter Four

Measurements

What Is Measuring?

Math Camp 13

The SI System

How to Get Used to the SI System

Math Camp 14

Chapter Five

Plane Geometry

The Circle

Math Camp 15

The Triangle

Math Camp 16

The Quadrilaterals

Math Camp 17

The Regular Polygons

Math Camp 18

Chapter Six

Space Geometry

Our Space

Space Figures Generated by Plane Figures

Math Camp 19

Polyhedra

Math Camp 20

Chapter Seven

The Art of Graphing

Bar Graphs

Straight Lines in the Cartesian Plane

Curved Graphs

The Asymetric Approach to π

The Concept of Scale

Math Camp 21

Chapter Eight

Simultaneous Linear Equations

Two Questions and Two Answers

Math Camp 22

Chapter Nine

Permutations And Combinations

Permutations and Combinations

The Birthday Party

The Pizza Shop

Repeating Yourself

Using the Words of Mathematicians

The U.S. Alpine Club

The Graduation Prom

Sitting in Class

Math Camp 23

Chapter Ten

The Mathematics of Chance

Throwing Pennies

Playing Lotto

The Car License-Plate Game

Shooting Craps (the Simple Way)

Math Camp 24

Answers

Answers to Math Camps

Index

Introduction

This book is the result of my own education and teaching experience, both rather unusual.

For the last 20 years I have taught in New York City and indirectly (through the materials of the Salvadori Center) all over the United States and in some foreign countries. The Salvadori Center is dedicated to improving teaching in middle schools, with particular emphasis on math and science (though its methodology is applicable to all subjects). So far, The Salvadori Center has reached over 120,000 students in New York City alone, dramatically reducing the dropout rate from the 40%-plus common in our town.

Prior to my interest in the public schools, I taught on the faculties of Columbia University for 50 years and Princeton University for five years. And, at the beginning of my university career, I was on the faculty of the University of Rome, my native city, for eight years.

My Italian education ended with one doctorate in mathematical physics and another in civil engineering. My 50-year professional career in the United States was dedicated to structural engineering design and to consultation in applied mechanics problems. I have dedicated the last years of my life entirely to teaching the young, from kindergartners through high schoolers.

I dedicate this book to all the wonderful teachers and students it has been my good fortune to meet in our schools. On the basis of this experience, I am eager to share my pedagogical approach to teaching. It consists of these elementary rules:

I teach young students with the same respect I taught Ph.D. students.

I present the curriculum, whatever the subject, through realistic examples from the students’ own world.

Whenever possible, I get the students interested by means of hands-on work involving easily built models.

I ask to be called Mario and to be interrupted whenever one of my statements is not clearly understood by anyone in class, having discovered that respect comes from appreciation rather than from authority, and that what is not clear to one student, most of the time is not clear to many.

I have tried to show that elementary mathematics is a fascinating fruit of the human spirit and not a series of mysterious rules dropped on us from the sky. Mentioning the names of the inventors of math makes mathematics as human and interesting as the humanities.

Although Italian by birth and education, I have not considered the study of Roman numerals essential to the education of American students. And, although a scientist, I have not considered it necessary to deal with some of the higher concepts of mathematics in middle school.

I have tried to satisfy the sixth-grade requirements of the Board of Education of New York City, which are similar to those of most boards of education in the United States.

I hope my colleagues in middle schools will have as much fun teaching mathematics according to these tried rules as I have had in teaching both the elementary and the advanced concepts of math.

Good luck!

—Mario Salvadori

Postscript

This book is just one of several projects that Mario was working on when he died in June of 1997 at the age of 90. On several occasions, usually when we met to discuss the book, he asked me the same question he liked to ask his students, Are you having fun? I naturally said yes, both because I enjoy mathematics and I enjoyed being with him.

Mario thought of math as a game—something to have fun with—and he always tried to communicate that sense of play to his kids. He chose the name of this book for that reason. He knew the importance of mathematics and he wanted to present, in as entertaining a way as he could, some challenging material that should be part of a typical middle-school student’s training. I think he succeeded admirably.

—Joe Wright

9/12/97

Chapter 1

The Invention of Numbers

WHAT HAPPENED 20,000 YEARS AGO

Astronomers, the scientists who study the sky, tell us that our universe, with all its billions and billions of stars, was born in a tremendous explosion that they call the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago (that’s 15 followed by nine zeros!). They also tell us that the sun and our earth were born about 5 billion years ago. Recently, anthropologists—the scientists who study humankind— discovered evidence that we human beings appeared for the first time on the surface of the earth about 4 million years ago.

As you can see, it all started a long, long time ago. Yet math was invented only about 20,000 years ago, the day some genius among our ancestors realized that three stars, three stones, three trees, and three children had something in common: the property of three-ness! To record this great discovery, this brightest of people held up three fingers or cut three notches on a tree branch with a sharp stone.

Although we were not there to see it, I am quite sure that our bright ancestor got so excited at this discovery that he or she began counting everything, just as you did when you first discovered that you had one, then two, then three, four, and five fingers on each hand.

Actually, our language gives us fairly good evidence that our ancestors also counted on their fingers. The numbers from 0 to 9 are sometimes called digits in English, and the word digit comes from digitus, the Latin word for finger. Whether numbers were discovered or invented is harder to say. I believe they were invented by people, as was the rest of mathematics, starting about 20,000 years ago.

ABSTRACTION

The idea of numbers is an abstract idea, meaning a thought in our minds about something that may not even exist. For example, we can think of a green cow with five legs, although real cows have only four legs and are not green. As people kept inventing more and more mathematical ideas, math kept becoming more and more abstract and, at the same time, more and more useful. The trouble is that many of us are not very good at abstract thinking. We find the abstractions of math difficult if not impossible to understand, and we end up hating mathematics.

If any of my readers are among the abstract math haters, I have good news for them. The idea of numbers may be abstract, but numbers are extremely useful because they represent very real things. We use mathematics so often, every day of our lives, that we could not live without it. Just think of this: could you buy anything at a store if you could not use numbers to count?

Of course, as you already know, math goes beyond mere counting. You are living at a time when science influences every aspect of our lives. We could not fly without the mathematical science of aerodynamics needed to build airplanes; your doctor could not treat you when you are sick without the mathematics of chemistry needed to make pills; nor could you talk with your friends over the phone or look at television without the mathematics of electronics. In short, whether we like it or not, you and I must use math all the time. And we live better than our early ancestors because more and more math is being invented every day to make our lives healthier, easier, and more pleasant.

Let us now find out how mathematics was invented, beginning with counting. I bet you that by the time you finish this book, you will agree with me about what mathematics really is— a fascinating game that anybody can enjoy playing as well as a needed game that we all must play for our own good.

COUNTING

Our early ancestors may have held up the fingers of their hands or cut notches like / / / on tree branches to indicate how many cows they had in the corral or how many apples they had picked that day. But they must have soon realized that no tree branch could be long enough to count a very large number of cows or apples. They eventually invented names for groups of notches and, since we don’t know what language they spoke, we might as well imagine that they spoke English and said one for /, two for / /, three for / / /, or nine for /////////, and so on. Thus did special words become useful substitutes for notches.

INTERNATIONAL COUNTING SYMBOLS

Our ancestors had an easy time using their special words to communicate with the members of their own tribe, but they soon realized that these words were not understood by members of tribes with which they wished to exchange goods, because they spoke a different language. We would have the same problem today. How could we sell 10 cars to a Spanish car dealer by using the word ten when 10 in Spanish is diez?

This problem was solved in due time by substituting numerals, more easily recognized shorthand symbols for the special words.

The word shorthand comes from a kind of special writing where symbols substitute for letters, words, and phrases, allowing people to