Middle School Math Resources

Hello to the gang from Howe Sound…  For Tamara and Mary I am putting together a post with upper intermediate links and literature connections – easy to find and all in one place!  Whee!  :o)

First – Some FAB middle school links can be found at:

NCTM’s Illumination – Middle School On-Line Activities and applets for exploring math concepts. A complete searchable database of tasks…

The Figure This site is provides a selection of math tasks for families, but there are some great middle school math problems here….

Here’s a site that demonstrates the power of exponents – visually…

The nrich site is full of unusual, challenging problems – check out the weekly problem section…

 

Some books that are amazing for jump starting middle school math lessons – with math concepts complex enough to stimulate conversations at the upper grades are:

One Well – The Story of Water on Earth – Rochelle Strauss
decimals, percents, fractions, very small, very large numbers, data management

If the World Were A Village – David Smith
percent, decimals, fractions, data management, surveys, population

Uno’s Garden – Graeme Base patterns, series and sequence, increasing, decreasing patterns, relationships

Jayden’s Rescue – Vladimir Tumanov
non-routine problem-solving

The Number Devil – Hans Magnus Enzenberger
complex math topics – Pascal’s triangle, square numbers, triangular numbers, integers, permutations, etc etc

Flotsam – David Wiesner
magnification rates, relationships, hypothesis

Wild Fibonacci – Nature’s Secret Code Revealed by Joy N. Hulme 
Fibonacci in the natural world

A Very Improbable Story by Edward Einhorn
dependent, independent events, likelihood, complementary probability

365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental
cubic numbers, factors, growing patterns, triangular numbers

The King’s Chessboard – David Burch
exponential growth patterns, very large numbers, scientific notation

A teacher resource book featuring lessons across the strands (geometry, number, pattern, probability and induction and reasoning) is Intermediate Investigations to Inspire – A Numeracy Resource for Grades 4-8 Classrooms. The lessons are classroom tested, feature student work, assessment rubrics, literature connections and on-line resources. You can purchase one for $18 by contacting me.

Carole