i will just check it out

Ok, there’s some code in the comment I want to post in answer to your question, Julie, that’s getting me kicked out of my own comments board. So I’m going to try to rephrase it, without some of the html that might be messing things up:

I don’t know the program you mention (will check it out though), but for your kids (bright, open to challenge, younger, willing to be engaged), I’d suggest Gnarly Math, which has a commercial site where they sell their wares, as well as a website for their Newsletter, which is always engaging, funny, smart, and mathematical. The current issue is all about Ch’in Shih-Huang-Ti, Emperor of China, who “arranged that measurements of length and weight would be the same throughout his kingdom.” The newsletter is written like a newspaper, albeit a newspaper for hip kids. So, in the reportage on Ch’in Shih-Huang-Ti, we find out that this dude, like, burned books, but Gnarly News intrepidly finds a young mathematician and interviews her [sic; it's all very pc!] to learn about ancient Chinese math. Like “Arithmetic in Nine Sections,” and tortoises with numbers on their backs… which add up a magic square…. And so on and so forth. Every two months or so it’s a different mathematical theme, with pretty interesting stuff that opens onto other deep math issues. Definitely narrative-style, contextual, and problem-based. Funky, too. Lots of fun. See their main site (which is also their store) to sign up for the free newsletter. (I deleted the code for the newsletter itself, since I suspect that it may be messing things up…)

The other thing I’d recommend really really highly is a book called the Number Devil by Hans Magnus Enzensberger — this is a great book, told as almost a kind of fairy-tale bedtime story. But with cool stuff, like Fibonacci sequences, golden sections, etc. Very good. I see there’s a computer/ software game based on the book available now, but I don’t know anything about that. (deleted code for the software game, but can be easily found on Amazon using “number devil” as search term…)

Oh, speaking of computer games: this one is great, but I don’t know if it’s widely available (we got it by way of fluke) — Operation Neptune. This is one hell of a great game, great fun for younger kids, too.

testing

Hi Yule,

Somehow I missed this post earlier this week. I’m grateful for your links re:HeyMath. Apparently HeyMath is at levels above my own children, so my long-awaited email from HeyMath only told me that they wouldn’t be able to help me. Zac’s review is helpful too.
I’ve enjoyed nrich, which I found by Googling for HeyMath:
http://nrich.maths.org/public/index.php
lots of great games and ideas for kids.
Thanks!

Hi Zac, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the review, which is very instructive. I also appreciated your reference to Roger Schank (in a related entry, which you link to in your review), whose work I don’t know about, but who seems to be striving for a constructivist approach I can really get behind. I checked his books out on Amazon as well as my local library — unfortunately, they only have one, but it could be a good ‘un, on children’s education (”Coloring Outside the Lines”). The e-learning book you mention, although targetting corporate e-learning, sounds like it might be really useful for pre-college or college e-learning, too.

I plan to write something more and comment on your blog, too, but for now must run — am way behind in my tasks here…