This issue of KIDS, dated September 30, 1997, was written and produced by seventh grade students of Cherokee Middle School in the Madison Metropolitan School District, located in Madison, Wisconsin.
The KIDS Report is published with the support of the Internet Scout Project and the National Science Foundation.
Ask Dr. Math
Reviewed by Katie B.
- Ask Dr. Math is just one big continuous question/answer session. Just submit a question, and "Dr. Math" will answer it. This site is for anyone, especially teachers, kids and parents. You can look at questions and answers that others have submitted, too. You can choose between elementary math, middle school math, high school math, or college and above. Some of the topics are: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, puzzles, projects, geometry, and more! If you are just dying to ask a question or itching to get an answer, then check out this site!
URL:
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/dr-math.html
Clever Games for Clever People
Reviewed by Peter R.
- This site has sixteen mind-challenging games. They have easy games for the younger kids and more challenging games for older kids. You cannot play the games on your computer, but it gives you thorough directions and step-by-step pictures to help you understand how to play and set up the games. Some of the games use things such as: coins (any other small markers), crayons, checker board, paper and pencil, or chalk. If you play these games often enough, you can develop a strategy that will always help you to win.
URL:
http://www.cs.uidaho.edu/~casey931/conway/games.html
Eric's Puzzles of Wonder
Reviewed by Erica S.
- This site is FULL of fun math puzzles. They vary in difficulty, some are easy word problems, others are really hard, and some are riddles. Older grade schoolers would get the most out of this site. There are four links to other Puzzle Ring sites that are good as well. The downside is that to obtain the answers you have to send a new puzzle to add to the site. There is a page of easier puzzles (riddles) where answers are provided, but Java is needed. Access is fast, and the site downloads quickly and is always available.
URL:
http://www.xmission.com/~ericward/puzzle.html
Mathematics Center
Reviewed by Katie B.
- This is really a great place for parents and kids! Every week this site has a problem of the week (click on Brain Teasers). The answers to the previous week's puzzles are posted every Thursday. The problems are categorized by grade levels. The problems are for kids in grades 3 and up. For those parents that need help helping their kids, this page has a Parents' Hand book. Here there are all different topics including: easy games to play, refrigerator math, books on math, and other math resources. The link called Project Watch has online math projects that teachers are doing. This page also has links to other math-related places on the Internet. This site is visually interesting, it provides good information, and it loads quickly. Overall, this is a fantastic site. Check it out!
URL:
http://www.eduplace.com/math/index.html
MathMagic!
Reviewed by Erica S.
- The MathMagic site is a project that posts math challenges for students in grades K-12. To participate in this project you have to register by teams. Each team is then paired with another team to discuss the problem via e-mail and reach a solution. The challenges are divided into are four different sections: K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12. Each challenge has a regular and an advanced problem to solve. Many of them require some kind of experimentation. Even though this site has some hard problems, it's pretty neat anyway. If you enjoy word problems, this site is worth a look.
URL:
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/mathmagic/
Plane Math
Reviewed by Peter Y. and Wrede S.
- At Plane Math, you learn math that has to do with planes! To start go to the link Activities for Students. There are 9 activities. Each includes a lesson that has to do with the activity, and an interview with someone who has a job that is related to the lesson. One of the activities is Flight Path. In it you must find the shortest path from one place to another. All the activities are interactive, and you get to answer lots of questions. The questions are story problems that have pictures to go along with them. The math in this site is pretty simple, so we recommend this site for elementary students. There are no links to other sites which makes this site less confusing and easier to navigate for elementary students.
URL:
http://www.PLANEMATH.COM/
Stanley Park Chase
Reviewed by Erica S.
- This is a really fun site for anyone, but most educational for younger kids (grades 3-5). It's a mystery story with lots of pictures. You have to answer multiplication problems to move from one place in Stanley Park to another. Be careful. If you answer a problem incorrectly, you have to start over. There is a link to another mystery story site called Bert's Victoria Run which is like Stanley Park, but uses division problems. The link for Bert's Victoria Run is located at the bottom of the Stanley Park Chase homepage. Both sites are very appealing visually and easy to get to anytime. To use these sites you need Netscape 2.0 or higher. If you do have Netscape 2.0, then this site is a great stop and is useful to touch up on your multiplication and/or division skills.
URL:
http://schoolcentral.com/willoughby5/default.htm
Strawberry Macaw's Puzzle Page
Reviewed by Erica S.
- This page is great for younger kids, elementary mainly. For older kids it's a nice break from hard, logical, formulated puzzles. All of the puzzles are interactive. Some puzzles, like Tic Tac Toe, you play against the Strawberry Macaw. Other puzzles really make you think, like the Three and Five Gallon Cans where you have to put four gallons into a five gallon can using it and a three gallon can. A few games like Sliding Number Puzzle and Sliding Picture Puzzle require Netscape 2.0 or higher. The site is very colorful and appealing. The puzzles load quickly and are always available. The Links button at the top of the page takes you to other kinds of puzzle sites.
URL:
http://www.serve.com/games/puzzles.htm
The Fractory
Reviewed by Brian B.
- The Fractory is a site that will help you learn about fractals. It has many fractal pictures and lots of information about them. This site has separated the information into five levels in increasing order of difficulty. One of the more interesting places is where you can make your own fractal. You can choose different colors and values, and the computer will generate the fractal. It suggests that you should only use numbers from 1 to 1.
URL:
http://tqd.advanced.org/3288/
The Math Forum
Reviewed by Katie B.
- The Math Forum is a big site that has many links to little sites. This is the site that created Ask Dr. Math, a different site we annotated. This site is for everyone. They have a student site with problems of the week, a teacher link with ideas, and a parent and citizen site to help students learn math and use the internet safely. This site also has a research center and key issues happening in the news today. If you go to the link called Math Resources By Subject, you can get links to many other sites to help you answer all of your problems. This site is fun for everyone, so check it out!
URL:
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/
The Stock Market
Reviewed by Wrede S. and Peter Y.
- This site is about the stock market. It has a lot of information on stocks, and it is especially helpful if you know very little or nothing about the stock market. There is a tutorial that lets you decide what you want to learn about. The topics are: what is a stock, types of stocks, buying & selling, tracking, and stock tricks. Even if you know a lot about the market, there is lots to learn. This site has information on mutual funds, rules, crashes, and market trends. It describes how the stock market works and gives tips on picking stocks. There is a simulation game where you get $100,000 to invest. This requires an e-mail address, but it is a good way to use what you learned. You get to the simulation game through the Simulation link at the top of the page. Although the reading level is about grade 5 and up, it is a very interesting site. We think it's excellent.
URL:
http://portia.advanced.org/3088/stockmarket/introductionnf.html
These Internet resources were evaluated on the basis of the Site Selection Guidelines
that the students developed.
Questions and comments can be sent to teacher Cindy Koehn,
ckoehn@madison.k12.wi.us
Last Modified: 2:30AM 9/30/97