So when I heard Robert Lang’s TED talk “Idea + Square = Origami” I found beauty in the way he uncovers the mathematical principles of this traditional art form and puts them to work. Origami is 1 uncut square and folding. He (and others) are modernizing the art, using math and engineering to fold intricate designs that are delightful, intriguing, and sometimes, as it turns out, very useful.

Robert Lang's Two Praying Mantises

Robert Lang is a physicist, using the tools of physics and engineering to break down problems and study the underlying theory. Provocatively, he says the secret is letting dead people do your work for you. You take your problem, turn it into a problem that other people have solved before you, and let them solve it for you – you use their solution.

The 1st step to modernizing this art was the development, by a Japanese artist, of a language of dots, dashes and arrows that can be used to describe the design of a form. Traditionally a sheet is folded in half repeatedly to make a flap, to create the leg of a beetle for example. The crease patterns when it’s unfolded reveal a quarter circle – you need a quarter circle of paper to make a flap. You can also make flaps from other parts of the paper, but a flap needs some part of a circle. If you want to make a figure with a lot of flaps, you need a lot of circles. Origami artists discovered in the 90’s that they could make very complex designs by packing more circles into a single sheet of paper. The basic rules of origami are simple, but these artists were able to create intricate designs by understanding these rules and pushing them further.

As with so much else in our lives now, computers have extended what this art form can do. Lang developed a program, based on these simple rules, that can calculate the crease patterns and do the circle packing. Origami, once the preserve of a few select, skilled artists, was revolutionized by understanding the mathematical principles underlying it and writing software to do the number crunching.

Lang goes on to provide wonderful examples of how origami has now been made useful in the real world, with applications in medicine, science, space, consumer electronics, and more. It’s used to allow things that need to be big and sheet-like when they arrive at their destination to be folded down to a compact form to make their journey – like the lens for a hundred-meter telescope used in space.

Here’s a wonderful perspective on all of this. Robert Lang said, wrapping up his talk, “When you get math involved problems that you solve for aesthetic value only, or to create something beautiful… it may turn out to have an application in the real world. And as weird and surprising as it may sound, origami may someday even save a life.”

You can learn more about it in Lang’s book “Origami Design Secrets: Mathematical Methods for an Ancient Art.”

Whether it’s a short history lesson (like the one we’re presenting below!) or something as exciting as the math behind the fireworks, summer math activities can help kids remember what they learned during the school year. Download one of our free summer math printables for fun summer math activities. And teach your kids about these math American idols!

4 amazing American mathematicians

John Forbes Nash, Jr.

This American Mathematician is the subject of the controversial Hollywood film, A Beautiful Mind, which was loosely based on his biography. Nash was a paranoid schizophrenic. His outstanding achievements in economics make him one of the most recognized mathematicians of his time. His work in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations changed mathematics forever. In 1994, he shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with fellow game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi. His most recognized work is the Nash embedding theorem.

Robert A. Millikan

As a scientist,  Millikan made many discoveries in electricity, optics, and molecular physics. He is most noted for his work on the oil-drop experiment, which was the first successful scientific attempt to measure the effect of a subatomic particle. During World War 1, Millikan helped developed anti-submarine and meteorological devices. He authored many books on physics and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923.

Donald A. Glaser

Glaser received a B.Sc. degree in physics and mathematics at the Case Institute of Technology in 1946. He completed his first original research in mathematics as a young college student, composing a bachelor’s thesis regarding an electron diffraction study. As a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Glaser developed ideas that led to the invention of the bubble chamber in 1952. In 1960, Professor Glaser married Miss Ruth Bonnie Thompson; the same year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

David Harold Blackwell

Blackwell was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Scientists and lends his name to the Rao-Blackwell theorem. As a child, Blackwell had little interest in algebra and trigonometry. But in his junior year, he fell in love with mathematics during an elementary analysis course. At age 22, he earned his first Ph.D. in mathematics. Blackwell was also a pioneer in textbook writing. He authored one of the first Bayesian textbooks, Basic Statistics published in 1969.

July Summer Math Calendar

A lot of parents work at DreamBox Learning, so we know what it’s like when school ends and summer begins. Kids get out of their learning and bedtime routines (no, waking up at noon is not OK), your house fills to capacity with their friends (who is that kid?), and your hardwood floors turn into a slip-and-slide (when will kids finally grasp the concept of inside or out?). Sound frighteningly familiar?

Summer is wonderful (s’mores anyone?), but it’s a challenge to keep kids learning when their brains are on summer vacation.

Summer math calendar keeps boredom at bay

Our free, printable summer math activities calendar keeps them practicing math all summer long. They’ll have an easier time transitioning back to school. It’s full of zany holidays, math learning tips, and fun facts. Don’t miss National Strawberry Sundae Day, Embrace Your Geekiness Day, or PI Approximation Day (beloved holidays at DreamBox Learning). And stay tuned for next month’s calendar.

Hang our summer math calendar on your fridge and you’ll never be short of summer math activities! And repeat to yourself: only a few more months until back to school… only a few more months until back to school…

The trick is to teach your kids math by combining it with fun activities. DreamBox Learning has two new free summer math printables: our Super Fun Beach Day printable, which shows you how to plan educational beach activities and the DreamBox Read-and-Learn Math List, which lists great storybooks that also teach math. Both are free and no registration required, so please take advantage of these excellent parent resources.

Fun Summer Math Printables:

• DreamBox Read-and-Learn Math List
• DreamBox Beach Day Printable

Fun summer math activities:

• Bake cookies and let your kids help you measure ingredients
• Play a rainy day math game, such as Dominoes or Yahtzee
• Go on a scavenger hunt and teach your kids to count and sort objects

Comment below with tips on keeping your kids busy during summer vacation. Are there any travel math games you play or math stories you read with the little ones? Let us know!

courtesy of Barnes & Noble

In my other life, I am a graduate student which means that I am constantly searching and reading research and books regarding mathematics education. In the midst of one of these recent searches, I ran across a book by Jo Boaler (a former professor of mathematics education at Stanford University) that is scheduled for release on June 30, 2009–What’s Math Got to Do With It?: How Parents and Teachers Can Help Children Learn to Love Their Least Favorite Subject. While it appears that this book may be the paperback version of Boaler’s book that was released in August 2008 (What’s Math Got to Do With It?: Helping Children Learn to Love Their Most Hated Subject–and Why It’s Important for America), the sub-title is different and that caught my attention. It’s not often that a book is intended for both teachers AND parents (which may be the reason for the change); more often, it’s either-or. Stay tuned for a review later this summer! But in the mean time it may be just the book that is needed to encourage parents and teachers to enter a dialogue about the mathematical learning opportunities for students.

Flag math and crafts:

Combine math with history by helping the children make a hand print version of the flag.

2001 flag from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School

Materials you’ll need:

1. One poster board per child
2. Red, white and blue tempera paint
3. Sponges or eager children’s hands

Start by painting a blue square at the upper-left corner of the poster board (the square is a little less than ¼ of the poster board, so you may have to do this yourself). Have the children make seven red rows with their hands (you can also make the red hand prints on a separate piece of paper and cut it into strips). Then paste fifty white stars (or dots) in the blue square.

Talk about the following topics:

1. Why there are 50 stars on the flag?
2. How many red and white stripes are there?
3. What does that number represent?

Enjoy these other helpful math activities at Forth of July Activities and USA Math Pages.

Fun math when watching fireworks:

I have always found that fireworks are an attention grabber with many children, and present a wonderful opportunity to explore the mathematics of measurement and timing, as well as touching on some chemistry.  As a great resource to answer your questions,  Nova has a wonderful outline on The Anatomy of a Firework. This is a brilliant way to show that fireworks are closely linked to science and math.

Since we all know that fireworks can be extremely dangerous, we should always leave fireworks to the professionals. Have a happy, safe and math-filled Fourth of July this year!

DreamBox Learning Presents 10 Celebrity Math and Science Geeks

1. Danica McKellar

(The Wonder Years)

Kevin Arnold was infatuated with Winnie the entire run of the hit show, The Wonder Years. If her character was anything like the actress, he should have wooed her with math wizardry. Danica McKellar is not only a former child star, she’s a New York Time best selling author and renowned math teacher. She wrote Math Doesn’t Suck and Kiss My Math, books that encourage middle-school girls to learn math. Winnie might have been whiny, but we love what Danica McKellar is doing for math.

2. Mayim Bialik

(Blossom)

Every young woman remembers the character Blossom’s iconic hat, best friend Six, and cool leather-jacket clad boyfriend. But few realize Mayim Bialik, the star of the 80’s sitcom would go on to get a Ph.D. in neuroscience at UCLA. Her dissertation was an investigation of Prader-Willi syndrome. Talk about an overachiever!

3. Lisa Kudrow

(Friends)

She played a spacey musician on the hit show “Friends”, but Lisa Kudrow is incredibly smart. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in biology. And she briefly dated Harvard graduate and fellow celebrity geek Conan O’Brien.

4. Huey Lewis

(Musician)

Before Huey Lewis was with “The News,” he got a perfect score of 800 on the math portion of the SAT and studied engineering at Cornell. However, he dropped out after his junior year to continue studying music.

5. Montel Williams

(Talk show host)

Don’t mess with Montel! The award-winning talk show host and former Marine studied Mandarin and graduated with a degree in general engineering with a minor in international security affairs. After graduation, he was selected as a special duty officer specializing in cryptology. Who knew?

6. Terrence Howard

(Hustle & Flow, Iron Man)

No one would suspect that beneath his tough exterior, Terrence Howard is a science geek. He has a chemical engineering degree from Pratt University and desires a doctorate in physics. When asked, Howard effortlessly explains wave-particle theory and the law of entanglement. Howard definitely doesn’t fit the pocket-protector-wearing math geek stereotype.

7. Dr. Dan Grimaldi

(The Sopranos)

He played mobster twins Philly and Patsy Parisi in “the Sopranos”, but his one true love is math. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, a master’s degree in operations research from New York University, and a Ph.D. in data processing. He teaches in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. With his mobster mystique, we’re sure he has no problem getting students to turn in their homework.

8. Art Garfunkel

(Musician)

Can Garfunkel add anything else to his long list of interests? He’s a Grammy award winning musician, as well as a poet, and actor, but he’s also a math geek! He holds a master’s degree in mathematics from Columbia and his brother, Jerome Garfunkel was the former member of the America and International Committees that wrote the specification for the COBOL programming language.

9. Cindy Crawford

(Actress and supermodel)

The super model is also super smart! Cindy Crawford was her high school Valedictorian. She received a full-ride scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University. After one quarter, she dropped out to model full time, but she could have had a fabulous, albeit less glamorous, science career.

10. Tom Hanks

(Oscar award winning actor)

He’s an academy award winning actor, but all he really wanted to be was an astronaut. Hanks is on the Board of Governors of the National Space Society. He wanted to join the astronaut program but we’re pretty sure he was meant to be an actor. And hey, he got to play an astronaut in Apollo 13.

Now, whenever your kids complain about their math homework, tell them that even cool celebrities study math and science!

Lisa Kudrow image courtesy of thebuibrothers.com

Well deserved gang, well deserved . . . as we continue to build more products, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if you all pulled off a Katharine Hepburn.

Research shows avoiding the “summer slide” can have a profound effect on your child’s learning development. You may already know that DreamBox Learning is a wonderful source for engaging math activities for kindergarten, first grade and second grade students. You also know that the sun is out, the weather is great, and your kids shouldn’t spend their entire vacation in front of the computer. Don’t fret. There are so many summer math and science camp options that you’ll envy your kids’ learning possibilities this summer.

Out of this World Summer Math and Science Camps

Rocket at Space Camp

In 1977, while watching students study rockets at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Dr. Wernher von Braun commented “We have band camp, football, cheerleading; why don’t we have a science camp?” As the math camps pioneer, the United States Space Camps in Huntsville, AL brings space exploration alive with summer camps, day camps and year-round family oriented activities. My son still talks about Space Camp, even though he’s long outgrown his flight suit! If you’re looking for a space-related camp closer to home, here is a list of space camps throughout the country.

Down-to-Earth Summer Math and Science Camps

Giraffes at SeaWorld/Busch Gardens

If animals catch the eyes of your young ones, the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens Adventure Camps are sure to light the inspirational spark for biology. These resident camps, day camps, or group camps give children of all ages the opportunity to interact with land and sea animals from all over the world. These camps are offered at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks in Tampa Bay, Orlando, San Antonio, and San Diego, or here is a list of biological science summer camps throughout the country.

Budget-Friendly Educational Summer Camps

These science summer camps may be convenient, but they’re no less exciting. For math and science activities closer to home, look to your nearest children’s museums or science centers for summer camps. One example that we DreamBox Learning appreciate is the Pacific Science Center’s camp and workshop program, which offers overnight and day camps. This summer, campers of all ages will learn about candy chemistry, GPS adventures, and discover supervised experiments with unstable elements. And the Seattle Aquarium, where one of our own staffers volunteers every week, offers Marine Summer Camps, where kids can get face-to-face with underwater life.

Choosing a Summer Camp

Whatever activity you choose for your little campers this year, make sure the summer camp is connected with the American Camp Association (ACA) to ensure your children are cared for by trained professionals. For a complete list of summer camps of all kinds this summer, visit www.mysummercamps.com. When your summer is filled with DreamBox Learning and these great summer math and science camps, your children will learn and grow while having a blast this summer vacation.

Harness the power of the internet for math learning and education

This is only made possible through the intelligent, rapid, and sophisticated technologies that energize these leading websites and their related services. So it amazes me that none of this transformative horsepower has been used in any meaningful way to educate children. Instead, we largely teach students the same way we have for a century, with large classes, lectures, and textbooks. And our use of technology in schools is reserved for improved whiteboards, automated practice, or distance learning. DreamBox Learning aims to change this: we are building a new software platform for education so that children can enjoy an individually-tailored, world class learning experience over the Web both at home and in school.

“All students learn in different ways, and in the book, we use the theory of multiple intelligences to describe this,” explains Horn. “Considering these differences and constraints on time and space for learning, it’s incredibly hard to individualize instruction for 20 or 30 students at a time. So our big question was: how do you break apart that interdependency and allow for truly student-centered learning?’ Horn calls for educators to be more purposeful in their use of technology in the classroom and discusses the new role of the teacher in a disrupted classroom.”

Michael Horn is co-author of “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.”

Reigniting the math learning debate

This sparked a follow-up — someone else shared the TED conference video “Don’t eat the marshmallow yet!” In it Joachim de Posada describes a well-known experiment on delayed gratification and how self-control can predict future success. It’s worth a watch, even aside from the video of adorable kids trying their hardest not to eat a marshmallow!

TED Conference talk: “Don’t eat the marshmallow yet”

With so much cultural emphasis on instant gratification — peer pressure to have/wear the trendy thing, media exposure to a huge number of ad messages, easy credit (well, maybe it’s a little less easy now) — it’s no wonder we all feel the pressure to have it all and have it now. How can parents teach self discipline, control, and patience in this environment? (Research suggests that many parents feel this is an area they haven’t done well with.) Smarter folks than I have wondered this too, so I went looking for a good resource on this topic. Now it’s my turn to share: here’s a great article on Parenthood.com: “How to Teach Kids Self-Discipline.” There’s plenty of insightful, common sense advice, plus a few other good resources if you want to learn more.

“Led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the states, including Maryland and Virginia, are aiming to define a framework of content and skills that meet an overarching goal. When students get their high school diplomas, the coalition says, they should be ready to tackle college or a job. The benchmarks would be “internationally competitive.”

Once the organizers of the effort agree to a proposal, each state would decide individually whether to adopt it. …

[U.S Education Secretary Arne] Duncan and others also said that even the highest goals lose their punch if there’s not an accurate way to gauge whether students measure up. That means revamping state tests — a cumbersome and expensive process. So far, the states have committed only to working to develop the standards.”

Does the assessment portion of this plan strike anyone else as being “too little, too late”? Darn it, if only there were a way to accurately assess a student’s knowledge and understanding at a very fine grained level that actually integrated with what and how they learned while they learned it! Then assessment would be neither cumbersome nor expensive. And the students might just be taught - and when necessary, retaught - what they needed to know when they needed to know it.

The DreamBox Learning K-2 Approach

Those of you familiar with DreamBox Learning K-2 Math know that our approach is to continually assess each student and individually adapt how we then present not just portions of the curriculum or individual lessons, but individual questions within those lessons. While DreamBox is based upon existing national standards, it teaches each student as an individual with their own strengths and weaknesses. In other words we continually assess then teach. Which is what good teachers have been doing for hundreds – perhaps thousands – of years.

Children aren’t screws or widgets. Each one is uniquely different and may require specifically individualized teaching. While the debate about national standards goes on, let’s not forget that no matter which “standard” you adopt, if you consider assessment as an afterthought rather than an integral part of teaching, then you are forcing some students to continually play catch up. As I wrote in a recent blog (Sometimes Things Just Don’t Compute…): If you don’t know a student is having a problem, how can you address it in a timely manner?

The success with which DreamBox Learning addresses students with widely varying skill levels has reinforced for me a variation of that old Chicago saying: If you want to provide a successfully individualized learning experience for a student,  “assess early and assess often”!

Let’s hope our politicians can be taught that as well.

Avoid the Summer Slide with DreamBox Learning and momAgenda

Don’t stress. Your kids can have a summer filled with fun that keeps math in mind. DreamBox Learning has partnered with the organization experts at momAgenda to create several helpful (and free) summer math activity “printables.” Keep the learning alive over the summer with our Summer Math Reading List, which includes some of our favorite stories for K-2 kids that help teach math concepts. Or plan a fun, safe, and educational summer activity with the Beach Day printable. You can download both of these free printables now!

Not surprisingly, these printables fit perfectly into the momAgenda Kitchen Folio and All In One Folio. You do have a planner, don’t you? A good day planner can be a lifesaver for busy moms.

DreamBox + momAgenda make a good team. We’re pleased to be able to pass along a special offer to our readers from our friends at momAgenda. For a limited time, you can get 10% off momAgenda’s day planners and accessories. These planners were made with moms in mind. They come in cool colors and unique, a mom-friendly format. (And you can share this offer with friends too.)

Use the coupon code DREAMBOX at momAgenda checkout to take advantage of this exclusive offer. The offer is good for DreamBox fans until until June 30th so don’t delay.

We wish you a fun, math-filled, and very organized summer!

I can remember making “trains” with upright dominoes as a child.  It took a long time to set them up just right, but then it was so much fun to watch them falling into each other so quickly! It was kind of like watching a tiny roller coaster in motion. Little did I know, though, that playing around like that was actually helping me to develop important spatial skills! It’s important to remember that children learn a lot through play, including how to be creative.

Children love “hands-on” learning, and manipulating objects like these dominoes is not only great for improving fine motor skills, but it can also make it easier for them to understand important math concepts.

Children between the ages of 4 and 6 are just beginning to understand addition. The dots on the dominoes make them the perfect tool for beginners. While 4 year olds will enjoy simply counting up the dots and matching up the ones with the same number of them, 5 year olds can begin to make simple equations with the dominoes.

For example, you can ask your child how many ways he can add to five. Let him have fun showing you which dominoes add up to 5.  If your child already understands what a “+” and “=” sign is, you can also ask her to write the equations that add up to 5:

4 + 1 = 5        2 + 3 = 5        5 + 0 = 5

Then, have your child turn them around to get:

1 + 4 = 5        3 + 2 = 5        0 + 5 = 5

A great book to go along with this activity is called Domino Addition, by Lynette Long, Ph.D. The same process can later be used to reinforce the operations of subtraction and multiplication as well.

People from around the world have been playing all kinds of games with dominoes for many centuries. If you’d like to learn how to play them, and learn a little bit about culture and geography along the way, a great picture book is called Dominoes Around the World, by Mary D. Lankford.

Children of all ages can learn important math and social skills through games played not only with dominoes, but with dice and cards as well. Board games and card games, such as Uno, make number recognition and other math concepts fun to learn, and children can also learn so much about the importance of cooperation and taking turns by playing math games regularly.

How has your child learned math through play?