Playing Cards for Teaching Math

Once when I was babysitting, I threw a deck of cards on the floor.  Then I sent the various children on scavenger hunts.  The younger ones were sent for colors or shapes.  Then I could send some kids for certain numbers, or odd numbers, or even numbers.  The siblings who were old enough to know addition or subtraction could be sent for “two cards that add to nine”, or “three cards that add to thirteen”. 

For more flexibility or to mix it up, ask for kids to bring you however many cards, as long as they add up to an odd number, or to a number greater than ten and less than twenty.  You could have the kids bring you one card, and then send them for a card that could be added to that specific card in order to reach a specific other number.  You can have kids of similar abilities race for the same answer, or you could give each kid their unique assignment and then say “go” to see who can complete their task first.  If the kids you’re working with don’t like messes, you could lay the cards out on a table in rows (it would be fun to sometimes have the cards in order and sometimes not). 

This kind of activity helps kids to realize things about numbers and math that they wouldn’t necessarily if they were just memorizing tables.  I like it for the additional reason that it uses supplies that many people have around the house, and that it can incorporate younger and older children.  It is active. 

To God be all glory.  

Stationary versus Stationery

I was writing the word "stationary" the other day, and wondering like always whether I was spelling the correct word. Then I had a brilliant idea: look up its etymology. I made a guess at the etymology of the

paper kind, that its root is "stationer" and that it came from the note paper, schedule books, tickets that train station clerks used. I tried to think whether "-ary" can be a suffix that means "pertaining to this thing": "glossary", "granary", "planetary" - I can see it.

So. Research results trump speculation:

stationery (n.) 1727, from stationery wares (c. 1680) "articles sold by a stationer," from stationer "seller of books and paper" (q.v.) + -y (1).

stationer (n.) "book-dealer, seller of books and paper," early 14c. (late 13c. as a surname), from Medieval Latin stationarius "tradesman who sells from a station or shop," noun use of Latin stationarius (see stationary). Roving peddlers were the norm in the Middle Ages; sellers with a fixed location often were bookshops licensed by universities; hence the word acquired a more specific sense than its etymological one.

compared to

stationary (adj.) late 14c., "having no apparent motion" (in reference to planets), from Middle French stationnaire "motionless" and directly from Latin stationarius, from the stem of statio "a standing, post, job, position" (see station (n.)). Meaning "unmovable" is from 1620s. In classical Latin, stationarius is recorded only in the sense "of a military station;" the word for "stationary, steady" being statarius.

-ary (adjective and noun word-forming element) in most cases from Latin -arius, -aria, -arium "connected with, pertaining to; the man engaged in," from PIE relational adjective suffix *-yo- "of or belonging to." The neuter of the adjectives in Latin also were often used as nouns (solarium "sundial," vivarium, honorarium, etc.). It appears in words borrowed from Latin in Middle English. In later borrowings from Latin to French, it became -aire and passed into Middle English as -arie, subsequently -ary.

I don't think I'll ever again forget the proper spelling for each.

All etymologies found and copied from www.EtymOnline.com

To God be all glory.