My Top Ten Math Blogs I Follow, Plus Two Bonuses

I follow (gulp!) 232 blogs on https://www.bloglovin.com/. I know some are defunct, and some are possibly renamed from older blogs, but I can't let go of any of them. I know it's geeky, but every morning, with coffee in hand, I browse through my blog feed and get ideas from great people from around the world.

http://www.fishing4tech.com/mtbos.html is an awesome place to search through blogs for a particular topic, but I truly love "happening" upon an interesting lesson or thought each day. I learn from so many people everyday, MTBoS is my virtual classroom.

ALL of the blogs are AWESOME, truly, whether they are about a lesson or even just a teacher's difficult life moment. I want to share with you my personal list of top ten blogs...ones that personally connect with me almost every single time. They are in no particular order, but generally, each time these bloggers post, I save them. They make me go, "hmmmmm." Maybe they will resonate with you, too.

1. Fawn Nguyen's Finding Ways. The first time I heard of Fawn was at TMC '15 . She gave perhaps the most passionate talk I've ever heard. Fawn is so brutally honest and true, and I think she connects with everyone. She can make you laugh and cry in the same sentence. She is fiercely protective of her students, like a momma bear with cubs. And get out of her way if you do anything to hinder the performance of her students. Every time I read her blog, I feel cathartic. Like it's everything I wanted to say but could never get it out nor could have the courage to say it. She is courageous, and it's no wonder everyone loves her.

2. Sarah Carter's  Math Equals Love. If you haven't heard of the Sarah formally known as Mrs. Hagan, you could be living under a rock. Sarah has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and even found her husband Shaun Carter on hard material. When you see her posts, you think, now why didn't I think of that? She is extremely relatable and it's no wonder her students love her.

MTBoS. Sarah does great things with Interactive Notebooks and planners, but she also finds easy, uncomplicated ways to teach and provides links to fantastic handouts.

3. Julie Reulbach's I Speak Math. Julie teaches Algebra 2, and if you need great resources and ideas, she's got them. She also will answer your questions on Twitter, and she taught me how to use Kahoot! at TMC '15...which, by the way, many of the teachers in my school now use!

4. Sam Shah's Continuous Everywhere But Differentiable Nowhere. Sam has unique ideas that I've never seen anywhere. I've used the fist bump problem (a take on the handshake problem), which I blogged about here and here. I use a lot of his problems in my problem-solving class. His posts are thoughtful, kid-tested, and there is always humor. And they are thought-provoking and genuine. I love them!

5. Meg Craig's Insert Clever Math Pun Here. Do you need ANY and ALL resources for Pre-Calculus, Algebra II, or Geometry? Meg's got them. All of them. She makes awesome review sheets and we both preach not to Kill a Kitten with our students. She is also the Queen of Gifs and cheering people up who need cheering. The world is a better place because of Meg! And who can resist her cute hat profile picture on Twitter??

6. Jo Morgan's Resourceaholic. I particularly like her gems, which truly are little nuggets of helpful links and resources that she finds by scouring Twitter and other places so you don't have to. I find nifty puzzles and facts there every post. She is also an amazing resource for England's math GCSE test that I don't give, but I do like to follow.

7. Amie Albrecht's  Wonder in Mathematics. I've only just discovered Amie's blog, and it is chockful of fantastic ideas. I particularly love her Friday Five series, where she, like Jo, finds awesome ideas so you don't have to.

8. Sara Vanderwerf's Saravanderwerfdotcom. Sara is also more of a recent find for me. She has great resources, and everyone loves her (secret)5x5 Most Amazing Just for Fun Game.

9. Ok, you get two here because I confused Alex Overwijk's Slam Dunk Math with Bob Loch's Math Coach Blog. I met both at TMC '15, and loved working with Bob in the Desmos workshop. He has great AP Stats resources. If you are into Visible Random Grouping, then Alex is the one for you. I had the pleasure of participating in his TMC '15 session, and it was fantastic...plus, he is pretty famous for something pretty cool, as you can see in this video!

10. Pam Wilson's The Radical Rational. Again, this is just another awesome site with great things posted...and she wears my math club's T-shirt.

Two bonus blogs. 

I save posts from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ and http://www.educatorstechnology.com/ all the time, as they often have great tech ideas to incorporate in the classroom. Though not necessarily math related, I use their ideas to get ideas across to students using technology.

In keeping this list to a top 10, I know I left several blogs out that I adore. What are your favorite blogs?

Let's All Teach a Course Based on #MTBoS

My Honors Problem Solving Seminar is an elective that is new for me and my school this year, and although I definitely brought many topics to the course, I must admit that my plans often get thrown out the window thanks to the MTBoS. One blog post or one tweet that I read before school could completely change my plan for class that day. There are so many things that I wanted to teach in my regular math classes, but never had the time. Now I can share with interested students all of the cool topics that are not part of the traditional curriculum. So I say, everyone, let's all teach a flexible #MTBoS course to our kids! Now is the time to get your elective out there to be approved by your department chairs or administration. My students all double up with this course and another math class. The prerequisite is Pre-Calculus or any honors math course.

Below is a list of many of the topics I covered first semester.

Things that I brought to the class (i.e., used before #MTBoS) but have mostly blogged about so are now out there:

Problem Sets These will last two semesters.
Figurate Numbers
Tower of Hanoi (I still need to blog about this.)
Art Benjamin's Mathemagic
The Monty Hall Problem
The Radioactive Cube Problem
The Art of Problem Solving
Die Hard 3 The Jug Problem
Florida Mu Alpha Theta Test Bank

Amazing things that I've built entire classes around using #MTBoS

Rubik's Cube (This was a long unit)
Sam Shah's Fistbump problem
Mr. Orr's Pumpkin Time Bomb Activity
Alex Overwijk's great little card problem
This tweet, below, which was a response to how to make a Sierpinski Triangle, which one of my students made (see above) as her final project.

Videos I've shown or problems I've given from #MTBoS

The Bridge Problem
The Fold and Cut Theorem
The Math in Pixar Movies
Cannibals and Missionaries Problem
Einstein's Riddle
Anything from Jo Morgan's Resourceaholic
Any puzzles from Emma Bell
Corbett Maths 5-a-day
The 3 Hats Problem or 4 Men in Hats Problem
Another Prisoner Hat Problem
Math major talks about fear
These Challenges

I know there's more that I've forgotten. I'm looking forward to Part II next semester!

5 Good Sites for Problem Solving -- Honors and non-honors classes.

MATH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. I came across the brilliant.org site when I discovered 5 Gems from Resourceaholic. First of all, every time I encounter one of 5 Gems from Resourceaholic, I find at least one excellent resource--and usually five! Brilliant.org claims to "Build your problem solving skills. Raise your performance in math and science with thousands of free problems, explanations, and examples."

What I like about this website is that it gives you a problem of the day both in email and on Facebook. Some of the problems are tried and true problems that are famous and not necessarily part of any curriculum. Others are spot on for the topic you are teaching, and there are quizzes made that students can take. They are not ordinary quizzes that you can find at a textbook website, where a student regurgitates what was just taught. Rather, they are thought-provoking problems that require higher level thinking and are more out-of-the box...a teacher's dream! Who makes this stuff up?? I want to meet them. This is great for honors classes, especially as a warm up or a pre-test. But it is also good for non-honors classes to solve as a group by throwing out ideas and coming up with an answer. It really gets students to think, and is great for when there is five minutes of class left and rather than have students pack up and wait for the bell, they can solve problems that are interesting. This problem had my students arguing for a long time.

And judging from the comments, there are still arguments ensuing. I need to spend more time here and earn points! I love the "gaming" idea of earning points on this site. I can give my students a link to a quiz that they can take at their own pace, and there are so many mini-topics to choose from. This is truly one of the best sites that I have come across lately.

I loved receiving this email from my student a few days later, stating in the subject line: This Brilliant Problem Uses the Square Root Property the Class Just Learned! So cool.

2. I have posted before here that I am the advisor of a math club, Mu Alpha Theta. The old tests that are posted on the FAMAT website are excellent, and again, many questions are different than the ordinary problems you see in a test bank. My club students work on these problems once a week, but I also pick some and put them on tests or review sheets to give to all my students so that they can process what they learned in a new way.

3. The North Carolina School for Science and Math (NCSSM) has an awesome test bank that again has good problems that are out of the ordinary. I always had a difficult time finding test questions that were not exactly like the book so students had to think, and I referred to this site for many years.

4. I have no idea how I came across Joe Champion's list of famous problems to solve, but I love the puzzles he lists here. One I try to give each year is the the problem of the three prisoners' hats, and I like to have the kids act it out. This works in all levels of courses, and is actually more fun with non-honors students, as the light in their eyes is SO exciting when they arrive at the answer together!
The other one I enjoy giving is the problem of the jugs of water, where students need to make exactly 5 gallons from 3- and 4-gallon jugs. After we solve this problem, I like to show this video from Die Hard 3 where Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson solve this problem and save the world. For more puzzles like this, such as the locker problem and Einstein's logic problem, see my post here.

5. Sam Shah's virtual filing cabinet has a plethora of problems ranging from "problems that don't fit" to "first day of school ideas" to "multivariable calculus." He has spent a good amount of time organizing all the problems that I love plus one's I've never seen. When do people find the time to do this awesome stuff for us?!?

This list could go on and on...if you have a link to a great problem solving site, please post below or send to me directly.

PLAY~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My favorite new book is The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. It is a book about a genetics professor, Don Tillman, who is socially inept and possibly has Aspergers, though he does not know it...think Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory..and is on a quest to find the perfect wife--although no one seems to match up exactly with his insane questionnaire. Enter Rosie, who is the exact opposite of the perfect wife for Don. It is very funny, witty, and I could not put it down. In fact, I went to the library today to get the sequel, The Rosie Effect, which is out in hardcover. I believe a movie is in the works.



EAT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK, I know it's past New Year's, but I wanted to show how I use http://www.pinterest.com/ to get most of my baking ideas for the holidays...and in general!

Follow me on Pinterest here for holiday ideas.