Halloween

Happy Halloween


(C)Copyright 2007, C. Burke. All rights reserved.

Please Excuse My Dead Aunt Sally...
The doctors performed the operations in the wrong order!

When Two Angles Meet

Welcome to all my new readers who just found this blog in 2023. In the past week (as I write this), this comic was seen a few hundred times and retweeted by a couple dozen people. I'm thrilled to see renewed interest in the old comics. please note though -- they get better over the years. The first year definitely had its rough patches! But I'm still making new comics in 2023!

(C)Copyright 2007, C. Burke. All rights reserved.

Something about this just aint right.

Co-medians

(click for a larger version)
Only 9.999 x 10^5 to go -- give or take.

(C)Copyright 2007, C. Burke. All rights reserved.

What Does This T-Shirt Mean?

I recently saw a T-shirt that with the following written on it:

Can you explain what it means?

What's the joke?

This blog will soon be open to everyone...

I used to use this weblog for my classroom math classes. However, I moved it to a school-based blog when this domain became blocked at my school.

I'm going to open this up as a general math website for everyone: teachers, parents, students and folks that aren't afraid of math in general.

I'm hoping to finally start posting some of my favorite math-related images and math cartoons, as soon as I can actually find time to create them properly.

What Have You Learned?

Given some of the test results that I have seen, I want to give everyone a second chance to show me that they understand the work we're doing and the concepts that we're learning.

So here is my question to you:

Can you name one concept or topic that you have learned and understood this semester (not just this marking period)? Explain in your response what you understood about the concept.

The Shape of Parabolas

Question: How does the
co-efficient of the x-squared term
affect the shape of the parabolain a quadratic equation?

Please use proper math vocabulary when expressing your answer.

Can the Mystic Ball Read Your Mind?

It's time to ask a new semester of students to try this:

Check out "The Mystic Ball" at http://www.mysticalball.com/

Did it read your mind? Did it guess the right symbol?

More importantly, can you explain how it was done?

Systems of Equations

For my Second Term students:

Describe in your own words any one of the ways that you can solve a system of equations. Please give more than a one-word answer.

Let's Talk Triagles

More about triangles!

Take a look at this Flash animation, Let's Talk Triangles.

Comment on what you think about it. Is it helpful?

Can You Explain It?

Mathematics is just about getting the right answer to problems. It's also about knowing the strategies that tell you how to get the right answer, and knowing when to how to choose the right strategy. (It's also involves recognizing if your first method is incorrect and finding a second method, but that's for another day.)

THINK about the questions below. What approach would you use to solve these problems.

1) You have a quarter and a dollar bill. You owe your friend twenty cents.
Can you pay him what you owe him or not? Explain.


2) Your friend tells you that I can't give you change from the quarter, but he can give you change of your dollar. Does that make sense?

Triangle review

There are two ways to classify triangles: by the lengths of their sides and by the size of their angles.

Here's a little workout where you can practice.

See if you can make it through all four steps.

Is this a useful exercise for you? Does it help you remember the different kinds of triangles?