Math From Three To Seven

This book is a captivating account of a professional mathematician's experiences conducting a math circle for preschoolers in his apartment in Moscow in the 1980s. As anyone who has taught or raised young children knows, mathematical education for little kids is a real mystery. What are they capable of? What should they learn first? How hard should they work? Should they even "work" at all? Should we push them, or just let them be? There are no correct answers to these questions, and the author deals with them in classic math-circle style: he doesn't ask and then answer a question, but shows us a problem--be it mathematical or pedagogical--and describes to us what happened. His book is a narrative about what he did, what he tried, what worked, what failed, but most important, what the kids experienced. This book does not purport to show you how to create precocious high achievers. It is just one person's story about things he tried with a half-dozen young children. Mathematicians, psychologists, educators, parents, and everybody interested in the intellectual development in young children will find this book to be an invaluable, inspiring resource. In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession. Titles in this series are co-published with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI).

This chapbook has a spine, although chapbooks by definition do not. But who cares about definitions these days when the very nature of reality has been called into question. This collection is not about hats nor politics. It is not a numbers game, although there are numbers inside. This is a collection of works that may be described as "potential literature" or "Oulipian lite," since all the good lipograms have been taken. REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION. INCLUDES ILLUSTRATIONS AND PROBLEMS.

The main part of this book describes the first semester of the existence of a successful and now highly popular program for elementary school students at the Berkeley Math Circle. The topics discussed in the book introduce the participants to the basics of many important areas of modern mathematics, including logic, symmetry, probability theory, knot theory, cryptography, fractals, and number theory. Each chapter in the first part of this book consists of two parts. It starts with generously illustrated sets of problems and hands-on activities. This part is addressed to young readers who can try to solve problems on their own or to discuss them with adults. The second part of each chapter is addressed to teachers and parents. It includes comments on the topics of the lesson, relates those topics to discussions in other chapters, and describes the actual reaction of math circle participants to the proposed activities. The supplementary problems that were discussed at workshops of Math Circle at Kansas State University are given in the second part of the book. The book is richly illustrated, which makes it attractive to its young audience. In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession. Titles in this series are co-published with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI).

Moscow has a rich tradition of successful math circles, to the extent that many other circles are modeled on them. This book presents materials used during the course of one year in a math circle organized by mathematics faculty at Moscow State University, and also used at the mathematics magnet school known as Moscow School Number 57. Each problem set has a similar structure: it combines review material with a new topic, offering problems in a range of difficulty levels. This time-tested pattern has proved its effectiveness in engaging all students and helping them master new material while building on earlier knowledge. The introduction describes in detail how the math circles at Moscow State University are run. Dorichenko describes how the early sessions differ from later sessions, how to choose problems, and what sorts of difficulties may arise when running a circle. The book also includes a selection of problems used in the competition known as the Mathematical Maze, a mathematical story based on actual lessons with students, and an addendum on the San Jose Mathematical Circle, which is run in the Russian style. In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession.

Many mathematicians have been drawn to mathematics through their experience with math circles: extracurricular programs exposing teenage students to advanced mathematical topics and a myriad of problem solving techniques and inspiring in them a lifelong love for mathematics. Founded in 1998, the Berkeley Math Circle (BMC) is a pioneering model of a U.S. math circle, aspiring to prepare our best young minds for their future roles as mathematics leaders. Over the last decade, 50 instructors--from university professors to high school teachers to business tycoons--have shared their passion for mathematics by delivering more than 320 BMC sessions full of mathematical challenges and wonders. Based on a dozen of these sessions, this book encompasses a wide variety of enticing mathematical topics: from inversion in the plane to circle geometry; from combinatorics to Rubik's cube and abstract algebra; from number theory to mass point theory; from complex numbers to game theory via invariants and monovariants. The treatments of these subjects encompass every significant method of proof and emphasize ways of thinking and reasoning via 100 problem solving techniques. Also featured are 300 problems, ranging from beginner to intermediate level, with occasional peaks of advanced problems and even some open questions. The book presents possible paths to studying mathematics and inevitably falling in love with it, via teaching two important skills: thinking creatively while still ``obeying the rules,'' and making connections between problems, ideas, and theories. The book encourages you to apply the newly acquired knowledge to problems and guides you along the way, but rarely gives you ready answers. ``Learning from our own mistakes'' often occurs through discussions of non-proofs and common problem solving pitfalls. The reader has to commit to mastering the new theories and techniques by ``getting your hands dirty'' with the problems, going back and reviewing necessary problem solving techniques and theory, and persistently moving forward in the book. The mathematical world is huge: you'll never know everything, but you'll learn where to find things, how to connect and use them. The rewards will be substantial. In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession.

What kind of book is this? It is a book produced by a remarkable cultural circumstance in the former Soviet Union which fostered the creation of groups of students, teachers, and mathematicians called "mathematical circles". The work is predicated on the idea that studying mathematics can generate the same enthusiasm as playing a team sport - without necessarily being competitive. This book is intended for both students and teachers who love mathematics and want to study its various branches beyond the limits of school curriculum.

This book is based on selected topics that the authors taught in math circles for elementary school students at the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; Dominican University (Marin County, CA); and the University of Oregon (Eugene). It is intended for people who are already running a math circle or who are thinking about organizing one. It can be used by parents to help their motivated, math-loving kids or by elementary school teachers. We also hope that bright fourth or fifth graders will be able to read this book on their own. The main features of this book are the logical sequence of the problems, the description of class reactions, and the hints given to kids when they get stuck. This book tries to keep the balance between two goals: inspire readers to invent their own original approaches while being detailed enough to work as a fallback in case the teacher needs to prepare a lesson on short notice. It introduces kids to combinatorics, Fibonacci numbers, Pascal's triangle, and the notion of area, among other things. The authors chose topics with deep mathematical context. These topics are just as engaging and entertaining to children as typical “recreational math” problems, but they can be developed deeper and to more advanced levels. In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession.

A step-by-step program that shows parents, simply and clearly, how to teach their child to read in just 20 minutes a day.