Mathigon is one of the many free resources I’ve included in my Wakelet, “Math Sites That Won’t Make You Fall Asleep.” It is rich with incredible interactive lessons that are visually appealing as well. Some examples I’ve mentioned in the past are the “puzzle a day” every December, its “Almanac of Interesting Numbers,” mathematical origami, the “Panorama” tool for seeing mathematical applications in careers, and “Alice in Fractal Land,” which you can find on the Activities page. (The Patterns and Sequences lesson is a good tie-in to the 12 Days of Christmas lesson I posted last week.) Also, the pentomino calendar challenge here.
One of the many tools I haven’t mentioned that you can find on the Mathigon site is “Polypad.” I was reminded of this when I saw a Tweet from @DavidPoras that showcased a fun way to customize some puzzles using the Algebra balance scale. In a way it reminds me of “Solve Me Mobiles” and the Balance Benders books we used to use in my elementary classroom or those Facebook math riddles that get passed around from time to time. With his permission, here is a screenshot of David’s Tweet:
In case you don’t have Twitter, here is the link to David’s puzzle. If you want to make your own, he also gave this link for the tutorial. (One thing to note that I didn’t see in the tutorial is that you can use the image icon in the menu at the bottom of the screen to upload your own images.) You can find more tutorials here. The Question Builder and Link Sharing videos will be helpful if you are making this type of activity. Creating your own puzzles does require free registration, and you will want to go into your Dashboard in your account and make sure you are registered as a Teacher in order to see the Question Builder tool.
If you happen to make more of these, please share on the comments. I will be adding this to my Math Wakelet, as well as my December/Winter one (under Stem). I might have a bit of time to create a few more puzzles, as I know teachers are short on time, and will share them here and on the December Wakelet if I do.
Thanks to David for the inspiration and to Mathigon for providing such an incredibly engaging site!
