The Power of Symbols

Today we looked at the power of symbols around us: some were on cars; some were on every day items; and X turned up on a tee shirt. Turns out the tee shirt was for the movie about Malcolm X, the black nationalist leader of the 1960's. He chose the last name X to represent the fact that he did not know his real name. As the descendant of slaves all he knew was his slave name. X was a symbol for a great unknown in his life. For more about Malcolm X please click the link to the right.

Communicating with Math

There are many ways to communicate with Mathematics. Over the past two weeks we have learned to find patterns in drawings; we have learned to find patterns in tables of numbers; and this week we are learning to change sentences into mathematical expressions. In each case we were learning to read the object in front of us. Learning to think mathematically is a way of looking at the world around us and finding a pattern. It is simply being awake and aware.