Math: Derek vs. Dad

A couple weeks ago, Derek began a fraction unit in math. His first assignment was to equally divide these "Crazy Cakes" into equal parts. Derek got an extra paper and chose to cut some of the shapes up in order to play with and divide them equally. Others, he reasoned through. Here's Derek's work:


We thought it would be really fun to see how Dad did this assignment. He got pretty technical with it and was tired by the end, which is why the last two cakes aren't divided. Derek thought Dad tried to make it harder than it really is.

This past weekend, Derek played a couple rounds of "Close to a Thousand" with Dave. Each person gets 8 cards (cards are numbered 0-9 with a few "wild" cards) and has to use 6 of them to make two 3-digit numbers that, when added together, get as close to 1,000 as possible. The person with the lowest score wins (for example, you get -50 points for 950 and +50 for 1,050--add together, and you have a score of zero, which is what you want). Dave won both times and taught Derek his strategy--to save all your "wild" cards until the last hand so that you can make up your points to get the lowest score). Mom may never beat Derek again!

Derek thinks math is fun with Mom, but REALLY fun with Dad!