Awesome Lego Maths and a Giant Lego Tree

You may not want Lego brick blossoms falling on your head,

but the Giant Lego Cherry Blossom tree has some awesome maths

to explore. See the tree built in fast forward below.

Trick 7: My Math Teacher is Psycho … Psychic!

Math Teacher Goes Psycho  ….  Psychic!

Requirements: Pack of cards and a little practise.

Watch this video to learn the trick. Then try it out on the class.

Beginner Math Prediction Card Trick

Trick 8: Spooky Maths Magic

Spooky Maths Magic

Requirements; Smart board/data projector.

 This is mental maths, but not hard maths. You can play this video by Marco Frezza  directly to the class.

It may not work on everybody, but it would be very interesting to see how many students are fooled by this spooky magic man.

Trick 9: Coin Trick. How to throw 10 HEADS in a row!!!!

Requirements: A coin for each student & smart board or data projector.

First ask your students to toss a coin 10 times each.

Ask each student how many heads in a row they threw.

Now ask students ‘Do you think it is possible to throw 10 heads in a row?

It can be done. Here is how you do it.

Derren Brown is a UK mentalist, magician, hypnotist and maths guru. He’s awesome. He shows audiences how a lack of understanding maths, especially probability, leads to misinterpreting the facts.

Now play this video to the students:

Trick 10: A Foolproof Gambling System

Math Mentalist Devises Foolproof Gambling System

Requirements: Smart board/Data Projector

or Chalk & Talk

This is the most awesome way to introduce probability.

Mentalist Derren Brown devises a foolproof gambling system. He sends a girl , Kadisha, the number of a winning horse in race to be run the next day. It wins. He sends her the winning horse and race number 4 more times. She ends up with winnings close to £ 1000 before the final race. Derren convinces her to borrow money for the last bet. She does. She places £4,000 on a horse. Did it win?????

Watch Part 5 of The System

 

 

If you are not convinced Derren Brown can come up with a foolproof system for horse race tipping, let me explain The System. He took 7,776 e-mail addresses, divided them into 6 equal groups and sent each group a different number for a horse in a 6 horse race to be run the next day. Naturally, one group of 1296 had been given the winning horse number.  This group was divided into 6 again and given the number of the ‘winning’ in a six horse race the next day and so on.

Race 1: 7776

Race 2: 1296

Race 3: 216

Race 4: 36

Race 5: 6

Out of 7776 punters, only one punter was given in advance five horse race winners in a row. Was it Kadisha. You will have to watch the Youtube above.

You can watch THE SYSTEM in full here. It takes 47 mins.

Math found in Strange Places

Mathspig was walking down a street in her home town, Melbourne, when she came across this Street Art piece on a wall of an auto-repair shop in Lygon St, Brunswick.

She nearly did a backflip with mathematical joy.

Fibonacci Rules!!!!!!!

Amazing Maths Clock

Albert Digital Mathematical clocks are fascinating.

You calculate the time using +, -, x and ÷ . Such fun and ideal for the math classroom.

Mathspig found the Albert Mathematical clock at the Horsham International Hotel (below).

More info on the Albert Digital Clock here.

You can set the level of difficulty. You get 1 minute to work out the answer and that’s long enough.