Carnival 231
Welcome to the 231st Carnival of Mathematics hosted by me, Karen McGuigan at Maths For Life.
231 is a number but maths begins long before numbers even come into it! When you say ‘maths’ most people immediately think of numbers… quickly followed by that anxious feeling when their brain makes the connection to times tables. But maths is more than numbers and indeed begins long before numbers with underpinning mathematical language.
‘How many blue triangles?’ seems such a simple question… however to be able to answer it you need to understand what ‘how many’ means, realise that ‘blue’ is a colour and distinguish it from other colours and identify ‘triangle’ as a shape that has three sides and recognise it amongst other shapes. Suddenly the simple question doesn’t seem so simple.
Maths begins with the development of prenumber skills, which are defined as:
Making simple comparison
Identifying same and different
Matching
Simple classification
These skills are largely developed through play in the early years and form a part of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum delivered at preschool and during the reception year at school. They are assumed to be secure when starting KS1 maths curriculum in year 1. I believe that these prenumber skills should be continued in the curriculum and explored further as a child gains in life experience. I recognised when I was working with my middle son Lance, who happens to have Down syndrome, that it was essential to ensure that he had mathematical language to underpin his understanding of numbers.
“How can we form a ‘5’ with a ‘hat, neck and a big round belly’ if we have no idea what ‘round’ means? How can we draw a ‘7’ as two ‘straight’ lines if no one has ever defined what ‘straight’ means? How can we see that ‘9’ is an upside down ‘6’ if we can’t visualise what ‘upside down’ means?”
By ensuring that mathematical language is modelled daily in everyday life, children can visualise, understand, and apply that language to their learning at school. Maths is a series of building blocks and connections. Just like when building a house, you need solid foundations. A key element of this is mathematical language. I believe that if we spend more time ensuring that the language of maths is understood in real life, children will have a more secure platform to make the connections in maths. Parents, teachers, teaching assistants can all make a difference by being more aware of mathematical language and using it daily outside the remit of the maths lesson.
The Carnival of Mathematics is a monthly blogging round up hosted by a different blog each month.
I am honoured to be hosting the blog for September 2024 and I have enjoyed trying to understand all the fantastic mathematical submissions that I have received. Here are the highlights…
There was a very topical Olympic flavour to my favourite submissions…
Both Mathwithbaddrawings and SCMB XYZ analysed the medal load of different countries and asked the question “which country really did the best?” (I am personally bias toward the option that put Ireland higher up the list!)
Andrew Griffin at Tarquin shared with us Mathematics with Friends - The Second Episode
This is episode two of the new illustrated maths blog "Mathematics with Friends" We use the everyday mathematical themes mentioned in popular TV series as our starting point, to explore the fascinating world of mathematics. This one was all about using our fingers to count.
Dave Richeson claims his son is the nerd but I'm sure it is in the genes!
If you have some free time and are bored of simple origami, then why not join Dave and he will take you through the step-by-step process of applying the Fold-and-Cut Theorem to solve his son’s challenge - “You should figure this out for the hat and spectre tiles!”
August edition of James Propp's expert monthly musings are about English - or rather the language of mathematics - in Math for English Majors and Everybody Else. I couldn’t agree more with his musings and who doesn’t love a Pi Day meme!
Although, I have to pose him the question… if mathematics is plural, why is the abbreviated version in the US “math”?
Terence Tao likes to keep everyone updated on his research and expository papers, discussion of open problems, and other maths-related topics. This month he covers the result of Bui–Pratt–Zaharescu, and Erdös problem #437. And there was me thinking the theory of smooth numbers where those that had lovely smooth curves like 3, 6, 8 and 9!
Pat’s Blog is the mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher and this month he delights us with an insight on “the first major achievement of American mathematics” Fabian Franklin's Beautiful Proof of the Pentagonal Theorem.
Pieter Mostert brings a whole new meaning to the word tile for me in his blog this month… unfortunately he lost me with bugs, turtles, roosters… I just had different images in my head. But if you fancy an alternative to “taco Tuesday” then check out his ‘tiling Tuesday’ here.
We’ve had English and Mathematics, so now a little History and Mathematics. This month The Renaissance Mathematicus brings use and very interesting back story on Robert Recorde (c. 1512–1558), The Man from Wales who founded the English School of Mathematics. He is created with publishing the first truly English, printed arithmetic book The Ground of Artes, published in 1543 with an expanded edition appearing in 1552.
And this edition of the Carnival of Mathematics will end with Math with Bad Drawing - Lover of math. Bad at drawing - who likens Euler’s identity to Shakespeare… a kind of mathematical “to be or not to be”.
I too am a middle child by spirit.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and mathematics / maths / math remains as beautiful as ever!