Requirements: A Pack of Cards and a willing assistant.
Take 10 cards from pack including the 10 Diamonds.
Lay out card in 3 columns in a pattern of 4 down, 2 down, 4 down.
Put the 10 Diamonds at the top of the left hand column.
Group students around. You turn your head away and ask a student to point to a card.
You carry on, think allowed and then ask your assistant to point to cards asking:
Is it this one?
No.
Is it this one?
No.…………………………………………………………………………………
When your assistant points to the 10 Diamonds he will show you the position using the diamonds. The cards are laid out on the table in the pattern of the diamonds on the 10 Diamonds.
Whenever your assistant asks is it this one? You will know.
Write the word carrot inside your math text book. Do not show students.
When Mathspig was a mathspiglet we used to play this trick. It doesn’t work on everyone, but it works often enough.
Ask a student to say 15 times 15 fifteen times.
Then ask them to name a vegetable. Students say carrot 90% (I’m guessing) of the time.
To make this trick more dramatic send 10 students out of the class before you begin and tell the other half what you are about to do. Students return one at a time. How often do they say ‘carrot’? What % of students say carrot?
In every volcano disaster movie from Volcano (1997) with Tommy Lee Jones to Dante’s Peak (1997) with Pierce Brosnan someone somewhere tries to out run a lava flow.
Is this possible? (See movie cliché busted by maths here.)
Now a lava flow from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano is threatening tiny town of Pahoa, Hawaii again. (below).
You will find excellent information about the Kilauea and other volcanoes at the
As the temperature of lava exceeds 10000 C there are very few ways to stop lava. According to the Taylor Kate Brown SMH (10 SEPT 2014) options include:
Bombing
Blasting (it with cold water)
Barricading it
Or adding concrete.
What if you are on your own.
Can you out run lava?
Lets do the maths.
Lava from Kilauea travels 17 yards per hour so the lava velocity is:
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.
This is mental maths, but not hard maths. You can play this video by 
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.
