Ice Cream Math and More Board Game Schooling -- Learning Log 7 for Fox Lover

May 4, 2015

We Played:

• Telepathy (Deductive Logic, Strategic Thinking)
• 20 Days Around the World several times. (Geography, Strategic Thinking) 
• Sherlock (Visual Memory)
• Constellations Memory Game -- We read about all the constellations included with the game, in the accompanying booklet, and read about Draco and Pegasus. (Astronomy; Visual Memory)
• North American Wildlife Memory Game -- We also read the descriptions of all 50 animals included in the game, in the accompanying leaflet, and discussed nocturnal/diurnal animals, camouflage, and other physical and behavioral adaptations. (Biology; Visual Memory)
• Sequela (Math: Computation; Math Sense)
• Ultimate Mastermind (Deductive Logic, Strategic Thinking)

We Read:

Story of the World, Volume 1 -- Chapters 14-15: The Phoenicians & The Israelites Leave Egypt (History)

Ice Cream Math: (Math: Computation; Math Sense; Patterns & Algebra; Probability & Statistics)

I bought 3 kinds of ice cream and 3 toppings and presented several problems. For example:

If you have 1 kind of ice cream and 1 kind of topping
(Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice Cream & Hot Fudge)
and you're allowed one scoop plus one topping,
how many choices do you have?

1
(PBC & Hot Fudge)

If you have 2 kinds of ice cream and 2 kinds of topping
(Peanut Butter Chocolate or Mint Ice Cream & Hot Fudge or Nuts)
and you're allowed one scoop plus one topping,
how many choices do you have?

4
(PBC & Hot Fudge; PBC & Nuts;
Mint & Hot Fudge; Mint & Nuts)

If you have 3 kinds of ice cream and 3 kinds of topping
(Peanut Butter Chocolate, Mint, or Vanilla Ice Cream & Hot Fudge, Nuts, or Caramel)
and you're allowed one scoop plus one topping,
how many choices do you have?

9
 (PBC & Hot Fudge; PBC & Nuts; PBC & Caramel;
Mint & Hot Fudge; Mint & Nuts; Mint & Caramel
Vanilla & Hot Fudge; Vanilla & Nuts; Vanilla & Caramel)

and so forth ... how many choices would you have if we had 10 kinds of ice cream and 10 toppings?

We worked this out with a simple tree diagram, and she quickly figured out the pattern and solved the problem:

1, 4, 9, 16, 25 ... 100

She didn't realize this was a sequence of square numbers until I pointed it out. She had worked out the pattern this way:

1 + 3 = 4

4 + 5 = 9 (5 is 2 more than 3)

9 + 7 = 16 (7 is 2 more than 5)

16 + 9 = 25 (9 is 2 more than 7)

and so forth.

I am always looking for "natural" ways to reinforce probability, patterns, and so forth, and this was a fun way to go about it. I love the fact that we packed so many concepts into a quick and simple activity, not to mention that eating ice cream was involved.