As part of the Mathical Readathon, we’ve partnered with our friends at Desmos to share with you an interactive tool revealing a surprise for Readathon participants.
Explore it for yourself and see what you can figure out about it!
What do you think the Desmos calculator will do?
Try pressing the “play” button & see what happens.
Now try changing one of the values & see what happens.
What do you think this calculator reveals?
When the value in the calculator gets higher and higher, what do you see?
Mathical author Don Tate (Jerry Changed the Game!) has created a surprise for our Readathon participants!
Let’s share: where’s the math?
As you find the final reveal, consider the following with your students:
Can you brainstorm some ideas about where the math may be “hiding” in each child’s activity?
- What do you notice about the picture? What are the children doing?
- What might math have to do with each activity?
- What future career paths or hobbies might they pursue?
What might the future hold as students learn and explore mathematics as they grow?
Author Don Tate has thought about it, too — and he’s shared with us a second illustration that shows the “after” of what fun the future can bring with math knowledge!
- For students: Can you create a story linking the two pictures together?
What do you notice about the “before” and “after” pictures?
You can see the before and after pictures created by Don Tate via the calculator links.
The first one shows kids reading about things they love, while the second one shows kids *doing* the things they love, after reading all about it!
Thank you to the following:
- Sean Sweeney and colleagues at Desmos for creating and allowing use of the graphing calculator above.
- Mathical author Christopher Danielson (Which One Doesn’t Belong? A Shapes Book) for connecting us with Desmos & advising on the project.
- Mathical author Don Tate (Jerry Changed the Game!) for designing beautiful artwork for the Readathon.
Learn more in this short video featuring Sean Sweeney of Desmos and Mathical author Christopher Danielson (Which One Doesn’t Belong?) explaining how it works.
Some extra advice:
- You are free to use the Desmos calculator however you wish, including trying your own image (which will not affect the Mathical calculator link).
- Can’t see the final image? Try maximizing or minimizing your browser window for better results.
- Let us know if you have fun with this, or other questions. Drop a line to mathical@slmath.org.
What is Desmos? Desmos is a free online graphing calculator where you can put in math and equations and it will create different graphs for you. A key point is that using the Desmos calculator is a low-threshold, high ceiling activity: absolute beginners can play with the calculator to see what happens, and as students get to higher level math concepts, there are all kinds of functions that they can learn and use to expand the kind of graphs they can create on their own, including mathematical art, animations, and using images of their own.
Is Desmos on Your Test? Your schools may already be using a graphing calculator by Desmos in your U.S. state for standard student assessment testing. Find out more here for curriculum connections.