Problem Sets

MOEMS past tests. http://www.moems.org

I received several past problem sets from the Math Olympiad when I signed us up. I tend to use these as take home problems that we discuss the next week. There’s also a problem of the month on the site. I’ve found these to be hit or miss in terms of interest.

Math Counts. http://www.mathcounts.org

I’ve picked up a ton of past tests and books from a friend who runs the local version of this contest. These I’ve also been using selectively to find a challenge problem for the week.

Art of Problem Solving Pre-Algebra. I occasionally steal one of the challenge problems that seemed to work well for my son when he tried them out.

Purple Comet Math Meet http://purplecomet.org/ A fairly challenging online math contest aimed at Middle School and High School. The old problem sets are a great resource even if you don’t do the contest.

MathNet https://mathnet.mit.edu/ A new and very large collection of Olympiad problems from various sources.

UW Math Hour Olympiad. There are not a lot of problems here but they’re all really good. Look about half way down on the page. http://www.math.washington.edu/~mathcircle/mathhour/olympiad.html

Park City Mathematics Institute: http://mathforum.org/pcmi/hstp/sum2014/morning/darryl/pcmi-2014-problems.pdf I liked the tiling problem sets I found in the beginning. I haven’t fully decided if they are at the right skill level.

2 more of the sets http://mathforum.org/pcmi/hstp/problemsets.html http://mathforum.org/pcmi/hstp/resources/2010problems.pdf

6 Problem/Posters that are all really fun: http://www.furthermaths.org.uk/favourite

Project Gutenberg’s Amusements in Mathematics, by Henry Ernest Dudeney This was published in 1916 but the puzzles are still fun.

https://www.exeter.edu/mathproblems - Exeter Phillips complete set of Math 1 - Math 3 problems. These are an actual curriculum built solely out of a problem chain.

http://areamaze.com/ Its only one type of problem as the name suggests but they’re fun.

https://eylemmath.weebly.com/ a good collection of fairly challenging problems.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jxwmd0s6or4yy8z/More%20Questions%20Than%20Answers.pdf?dl=0 Matt Enlow’s set of favorite 100 questions

https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/mathematics/beyond_classroom/for_the_community/hsmc/ High School Math Competition from Univ. of South Carolina

http://www.jamestanton.com/?p=1072 Newletters from James Tanton.

https://www.mathteacherscircle.org/resources/sessions/ Math Teacher Circle activities.

https://www.imaginary.org/sites/default/files/taskbook_arnold_en_0.pdf Interesting set of problems from Mathematician V.I. Arnold

Problems of the Week

http://www.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/resources/potw.php Problem of the week from U Waterloo. Sometimes a bit dry / too close to homework but its real nice that they are tightly leveled by grade band.

https://orion.math.iastate.edu/ehjohnst/PoW/PoW.html The Iowa State problems of the week.

http://www.mathteacherscircle.org/ Expii’s problems of the week. Po-Shen Loh the author is the coach for the national team.

https://www.mathcounts.org/resources/problem-of-the-week Mathcount’s version - oriented towards the contest.

https://www.moems.org/zinger.htm MOEMS problem of the month. Usually at the lower Elementary level.

http://www.insidemathematics.org/problems-of-the-month Problems of the Month from Inside Mathematics. These ones are K-8 and multi-level per grade. More complex than some of the others in the sense they are often more than a single question.

Videos

http://www.numberphile.com/ This is a fun site and occasionally it has a topic that translates really well into the afterschool setting.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw 3 Blue 1 Brown is more serious than numberphile and specializes in interesting visualizations.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1_uAIS3r8Vu6JjXWvastJg Mathologer - another consistently interesting channel.

Note: Given the networking situation in the school a tool like: 4k Video Downloader which takes a streaming video and creates a local copy is the best way I’ve found to bring videos into the classroom

Games

  • Manifold
  • Pente

Sites

http://www.mathcircles.org/ The NAMC site.

This has a great document showing sample sessions and topics used by various math circles. This was one of my favorite initial reads: http://legacy.mathcircles.org/GettingStartedForNewOrganizers_WhatIsAMathCircle_CircleInABox

http://www.artofmathematics.org/books Large collection of material aimed originally at inquiry based learning at the college level. But its highly adaptable.

http://solvemymaths.com/ Another set of interesting puzzles and problems.

http://www.gogeometry.com/ Another interesting but fairly difficult set of geometry problems. I haven’t fully reviewed yet to see if any are usable at this level.

http://artofproblemsolving.com/mathcounts_trainer Brand new site from AoPS with MathCounts style problems to solve online.

https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ A large set of interesting mathematical curiousities. These look great for starting off a session.

graph theory for kids http://jdh.hamkins.org/math-for-eight-year-olds/

http://brilliant.org/

http://www.mathteacherscircle.org/ Math Circle Teacher’s Network. Some very interesting videos and general advice on getting started.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1001mathcircles/ The natural math facebook page. This is very active.

https://undergroundmathematics.org/ Ok this is really a high school site out of Cambridge aimed at GCSE exams. But the underground map is so charming I’m including it anyway.

https://www.orlandomathcircle.org/knowledge-base/ Orlando Math Circle - a fairly large org with a bunch of activities on its site.

http://nrich.maths.org/frontpage - British site with a lot of interesting pre-canned lesson ideas across multiple grade levels.

https://www.artfulmaths.com/mathematical-art-lessons.html A large collection of math/art project ideas.

https://mns.co.il/ Math moments - slide decks on current math discoveries.

http://datagenetics.com/blog A monthly series of puzzles.

https://www.solipsys.co.uk/ A personal website with a bunch of articles. Its not easily navigated so you may need to spend some time figuring out what’s there.

https://acko.net/blog/how-to-fold-a-julia-fractal/ Really beautiful animation of complex arithmetic leading up to the julia fractal.

Online Periodicals

http://chalkdustmagazine.com/ Maths magazine with interesting articles from undergraduates often adaptable to a math circle.

https://aperiodical.com/

https://www.quantamagazine.org/

3D Geometric Shape Templates and Nets

http://www.senteacher.org/worksheet/12/Nets-Polyhedra.html The basic Platonic Solid Nets

http://www.korthalsaltes.com/ Another site with a more extensive selection of platonic solid nets included the stellated versions.

http://makingmathvisible.com/Workshops.html George Hart’s site with a few lessons + templates. This is well written so its a good starting point.

https://www.uv.es/monera2/ A spanish site with some more complicated constructions.

http://erikdemaine.org/foldcut/ Erik Demaine’s fold and cut templates.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/109333486@N07/albums/72157691690123514/with/24927194557/ Alison Martin’s flickr album on 3D shape weaving.

https://github.com/mcnees/LaTeX-Graph-Paper Latex package to make various grids - hex, triangle etc.

Blogs

http://www.mathandmischief.com/ A homeschooler who appears to have similar mathematical taste to me. I like her recent video lists.

https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/ A blogger I’m liking recently.

Worksheets

http://www.kutasoftware.com/ A set of standard worksheets on various topics. Possibly useful as warm-up material in small doses.

Online Papers

http://math.fau.edu/Yiu/tour.pdf A tour of triangle Geometry

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bUC_7-AYWKC2hXN82koTHuxDFKO1Pew2/view Modern Geometry of the Triangle

Books:

http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Circle-Diaries-Year-Curriculum/dp/0821887459

I liked this one because it had a week by week description of what this circle did. Especially initally it was interesting for leveling and ideas about how long various activities took. Its also continues to be helpful as a source of ideas for topics.

http://www.amazon.com/Moscow-Math-Circle-Week-Week/dp/0821868748/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=07PDCP0Q1G8D3K4PASBH

This one is more straight problem sets. I haven’t used it much yet but I’m thinking about doing a solve-a-thon at some point and reusing their sets.

http://mathlabforkids.com/ “Math Lab For Kids” Aimed at upper elementary this book has a nice assortment of activities from map coloring, to graph theory. Everything comes with a supply list and sample questions to ask which looks like it would make it easy to adopt.

My Math Circle Activity Maps

2014-15 activities: (4-5th) http://mymathclub.blogspot.com/p/2014-2015-sequence-map.html

2015-16 activities: (4-5th) http://mymathclub.blogspot.com/p/2015-2016-activity-map.html

2016-2017 activities: (5th) http://mymathclub.blogspot.com/p/2016-2017-topic-map.html

2017-2018 activities (6-8th): http://mymathclub.blogspot.com/p/2017-2018-topic-map.html

2018-2019 activities (6-8th) https://mymathclub.blogspot.com/p/2018-2019-topic-map.html

Local Contests

  1. Knights of Pi
  2. Math is Cool
  3. Blaine Washington State Math Competition
  4. Julia Robinson Math Festival
  5. AMC8
  6. Washington Math Olympiad