Behold the power of math

When I picked up the kids from the playground today, we had a little time on our hands as my helper ran around to open the door so we could go inside. So naturally, the kids took that opportunity to loudly pester me for my age. I refrained from answering.

Suddenly, though, one of my girls announced that she had a 36 year old sister. Seeing as how my student is 9 years old, I thought it odd that she would have a sister that old. Not entirely within the realm of impossibility, but very unlikely. So I asked her how old her mother was. She told me that her mother was 43.

I didn't want to jump to any immediate conclusions, so I asked her if she had the SAME mother as her sister, and she affirmed. I told her that her mother would have had to have had her sister at age 7 if that was the case.

Apparently, judging by her red face and her sheepish grin, she was a bit mistaken on one age or the other, I never found out which.

Ain't math great?

On another note, the Carnival of Educators is up and running (with a Mother's Day theme!) at I Want to Teach Forever. Go over and check out all the great posts!

Gimme an EWWWWWWW!!

Today, I was sitting up in front of the class posing some fractional problems. What is one half of 16, what is one fourth of 20, etc.

After a couple of these, I happened to notice that one of the girls in my class had a big binder with a couple of pictures on the covers. On one side, there was a team photo of the Dallas Cowboys. On the other side (what I like to call the GOOD side), there was a team photo of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

So nonchalantly, I asked the class for 1/6 of 84, and then I said while YOU look at THAT, I will look at THIS. And I picked up the binder.

As you would expect, the fraction of kids actually doing the problem after that was roughly 0/18. They all preferred to say in unison, "EWWWWWWWWWWW!”

Made me wonder if somebody had smelled some old strawberry milk…

But at first, I pretended not to notice that they weren't doing their work. I pretended to stare at the picture in rapture, moving it closer to my eyes than far away. Again, for some reason, this was met with a resounding, "EWWWWWWWW!!”

I jabbed with a finger at the picture a couple of times while saying, "I know her, I know her, yeah -- talk to her on the phone last night…”

This time, when I got the now- expected “EWWWWWWW!!” I asked, "Why are you EWWWW-ing about talking to someone on the phone?”

One of my kids blurted out, "and all the kissing and stuff…” in this really strained, hoarse voice, that sounded like someone having an especially difficult time on the toilet.

By this time, I was really warming to my audience, so I put a little word problem up on the board.

There are 84 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
1/6 of them like Mister Teacher.
How many cheerleaders like me?

Inside my head, answer choices were:
A) 16
B) 14
C) 504
D) EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

And of course, all of the kids chose answer D.

I love math.