Math, math, math, math, math.

I'm very interested in math lately. Unschooling has been wonderful for me, the poor girl who finished her schooling with the idea that math was hard and boring and something she wasn't good at.

I've heard for years about the "beauty" of math and really thought that people who talked like that had a screw loose. I'm getting it now.

A website I looked at the other day (can't remember where) said something about how we don't tell kids we won't read them a story until they know the ABC's. We don't tell them they shouldn't listen to a symphony until they can read music. And yet, with math, so many people are told they have to spend years drilling the basics before they can even think of being introduced to anything else.

I've been trying to understand how math can be beautiful or fun but until recently, my own education in math was hindering me. I don't know what happened recently, maybe it just took this long to deschool myself, but something snapped and suddenly I get it.

So here are some sites I've been enjoying lately. This is stuff I've been delving into and sometimes the kids express an interest and sometimes they leave me alone with it.

Robert sent me this Math art link.

Bridget's eyes glazed over when I tried to explain how this next thing worked, but she still thought it was an impressive trick and had fun giving me numbers to work with.

Fibonacci numbers. I still haven't wrapped my mind around these all the way but it's interesting.

Love this page. It inspired me to make a Sierpinski tetrahedron (scroll down around the middle of the right side for a photo tutorial). Owen really got into helping me with this. Bridget liked the outcome but wasn't as interested in the construction. I'll post a picture of it when I get around to actually taking a picture of it ;-)

All of us have enjoyed this fractal making applet, though it does freeze up every now and then which is annoying (might be my computer, I don't know). It says "fern" and that's the first example but you can pick others too. Go to "edit" to change the general shape.

I love this picture so much I had Robert print it out at work (on the good printer he has there) on photographic paper. There's also an interesting article on this veggie. Owen and I went grocery shopping last week and he suggested we look for fractals in the produce section. We didn't find one of these, but they had artichokes and garlic and asparagus that all seemed to be fractals.

I found a web supplement to some class on fractals that is interesting. I especially like Fractals in the kitchen. But the part on how to tell what is and isn't a fractal was useful too. Well, ok, most of the links are cool. Check out the art and the fractal cuts - both have instructions on how to do things if you like. Do I totally understand the mathematics behind all this? No. But it's pretty and I'm having fun. You don't need to understand it to see the coolness factor. That's my whole point :-D

I already linked to this site in another post but it's really cool and deserves more blog time. It's a British site, as I finally figured out. Which explains why it's "maths is fun", not math ;-D If you go to the introduction to algebra page I think it has the simplest, clearest, easiest to understand introduction to algebra I've ever seen. Also, the page for the platonic solids has templates you can print out to make your own (clik the "model" link next to each shape). Of course Owen requested I do a dodecahedron first and man that thing was tough to glue. I'm sure the icosahedron (20 sides) will be fun (or not).

And finally - in this video he didn't get the lip synch right this time (his other videos he does) but don't look at him, look at the pictures and listen to the words. I find it very inspirational (it doesn't hurt that I've been a Tom Lehrer fan since I was a kid, though I usually go for his grosser stuff ;-) Everytime Owen asks to fold towels I think of this song :-D