Nearly as tasty as chocolate covered potato chips from PEI, "Chocolate Sweeties" are also sold by the Anne of Green Gables Chocolate Shop.  

These little cubes of brown sugar fudge are covered in a delicious, creamy milk chocolate,  and come in packages of 6.

We opened one such package in the kitchen after dinner the other night, and I immediately smelled a math problem!

"They're sooooo good!" proclaim Alex and Simon, and Ms. K decides to generously give a third of her portion to the boys to share.  How much of the package did the boys end up with each?

If everyone kept their fair share, how many packages would we need to open so that each person gets a whole number of chocolate sweeties?

Can you think of any other math problems the chocolate sweeties cause?  If so, please comment below!

I believe strongly in a combination of self-regulated and instructional approaches to effective classroom management.  

If students are to be successful 21-century citizens, they cannot spend their entire school lives being spoon-fed by their teachers.  In order to foster the effective self-regulatory, meta-cognitive and collaborative skills I believe (and research states) students will need in order to succeed in the society they will graduate into, considerable time needs to be spent at the beginning of each school year establishing and reinforcing routines in ways that help students to co-develop a safe and inclusive learning space.

Some readers will remember the introduction of Sneakers, our family's new dog, earlier this summer.

In an effort to help Sneakers burn off excess energy (a tired dog is a happy dog!), we try to get her to the leash-free park at least once a day, in addition to walks around the neighbourhood.

Because we don't have a car, and because the dog park is a little too far to walk for a puppy who is not yet fully "loose-leash walking" trained, Ms. K decided to take Sneakers in the trailer attached to the back of her bike.  Sneakers wears a harness, and this harness is clipped in two ways to keep her safe (and the rider stable!)  Then Ms. K heads out of the parking lot and down to the bike path, which leads directly to several nearby leash-free parks.

On the weekends, the boys come with us on their bikes, and we all go together as a family, but during the week, Ms. K usually takes Sneakers on her own after everyone else has left for school and before Ms. K has to go to work.

It's very funny to see Sneakers' furry doggie head sticking out of the trailer, and it's great exercise for the rest of us to go to the dog park, too.  Sneakers loves to play fetch, though she also enjoys just finding a big stick and chewing it in the cool grass!

And now, a little Math:

If Ms. K bikes to the dog park and back every day, how much "mileage" (how many km) does she add to her weekly bike-mileage count?  (The dog park is 3.1 km away from our home.)

Pedaling a dog to the park builds strong leg muscles! The bike trailer alone weighs about 21 lbs, and there are about 5 lbs of bedding, water bottle/bowl and dog treats in the trailer, along with the dog. 

Last week, Ms. K took Sneakers to puppy training classes at Petsmart.  While there, she picked up a 30 lb bag of dog food, which she put in the trailer, along with the dog! The trailer has a weight restriction of 120 lbs, and with Sneakers and all her stuff in the trailer, they were 9 lbs under the limit.  How much does Sneakers weigh?  How do you know?

I've decided to add a new category to my blog.  "Math Eyes" will include various visual provocations I plan to use with my kids at home and/or my students at school, based on scenarios we observe in the world around us.

I've been developing my "math eyes" for a few years now, but it really started to come together for me pedagogically at last spring's OAME conference, where I had a chance to hear Dan Myer and various other math educators talking about how best to engage students in the 21 Century.

Here's one to get you started... stay tuned for more, or feel free to contribute your own by contacting me, or by leaving a comment below.

There's a fellow pounding nails into a dead tree out front of the Confed Ctr in Ch'town.  

Turns out Paul Griffin, the Canadian logger-come-Artist responsible for Sarcophagus for an Elm is in town to create Sarcophagus 2, an installation featuring a 110-year-old elm tree and 100 000 electroplated galvanized nails.

I immediately smelled a math problem!

Looking at the whole log structure, and honing in on a small patch of nails, I asked the boys, who had just come from their first day of Art camp, how they thought the artist might have estimated the number of nails required to complete the project.

Paul overheard our conversation, and jumped in to confirm my suspicions:  He'd covered half a square foot of the log with nails, then doubled that, and calculated how many square feet of nails would be needed to cover the log, which is in essence a series of cylinders. (I thought fondly of my Grade 8s this past year!)

If you prefer time to surface area, Paul anticipates the project will take 3-4 weeks to complete.  That's good for at least three periods worth of estimation and calculation problems Grades Two through Six!!