Homeschool Math Newsletter, Vol. 42, July 2010

Hello again! I wanted to quickly send you some updates on a few different things:

1. Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks
2. Oldies music
3. Updates...

1. Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks

I recently received Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks from the author, Patrick Vennebush. This is a very comprehensive collection of math-related jokes that all "mathy" people will definitely enjoy, and math teachers could use this book to enliven their lessons.

I have seen several of the jokes on the Internet, but never such a large collection.

The jokes are categories into chapters such as

One-Liners, ("A hungry clock goes back four seconds.")
Graphic Jokes, (For example, "Cube Roots" picture you see on the cover of the book.)
Three Dudes, (An engineer, a mathematician, and a chemist are...)
Conversion Chart, (109 antics = 1 gigantic, or 454 graham crackers = 1 pound cake)
Professions, ("The secretary of defense informed the president, 'Yesterday, three Brazilian soldiers were killed. 'Oh, no!' the president exclaimed. ... 'How many is a brazillion, anyway?' ")

And so on.

Continue reading!

2. Oldies music

This is a bit different entry from the norm, and if you're not interested in music (or oldies music), just skip past it. (I realize people's musical tastes vary tremendously.) I just wanted to share a bit of news of my favorite, 24K Gold Music Shows, and their new YouTube channel. They mainly play music from 50s and 60s; that is, oldies music.

You can now see their videos on songs such as:

Cara Mia (my favorite!):

Love Can Build a Bridge (a beautiful ballad with a strong emotion):

Or something faster such as Elvis' Burning Love:

See more videos - or subscribe at their channel page.

3. Updates...

1. All the Light Blue books now have new samples! Now, the samples include a complete lesson from each chapter, instead of individual, scattered pages. Download them here:

Grade 1-A contents & samples
Grade 1-B contents & samples
Grade 2-A contents & samples
Grade 2-B contents & samples
Grade 3-A contents & samples
Grade 3-B contents & samples
Grade 4-A contents & samples
Grade 4-B contents & samples
Grade 5-A contents & samples
Grade 5-B contents & samples
Grade 6-A contents & samples

2. Update on Math Mammoth Grade 6-B Complete Curriculum, for those interested. It will have chapters on the following topics: percent, geometry, integers, and probability & statistics. I have finished writing all the material for percent, and in fact it has been published in the Blue Series book Percent.

Right now I'm almost through writing the lessons (not yet answer key) for the geometry chapter. This became kind of long, and includes topics such as review of area of polygons, Pi & area of circle, similar figures, transformations, and volume & surface area of some solids. Writing these lessons is slow because of the need to make lots of images.

This material will also ultimately be released in a Blue Series book (Geometry 2).

So, there is still some work with the geometry chapter, after which I can turn my attention to integers.

Till next time,
Maria Miller

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