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Dear Friends of Math Cats,

Greetings! After a long silence, Math Cats News will come to you twice in November. I will be spending the next several days at the Eastern Regional Conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and will write again soon with some of the ideas and resources I expect to encounter there.

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     WHAT'S NEW AT MATH CATS
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* MATH CATS WRITING CONTEST
http://www.mathcats.com/contest.html

A student wrote to Math Cats in late September, asking, "Why do we have math????"

Rather than answering him directly, we've turned this question into the first monthly Math Cats Writing Contest. Please visit the contest page to learn all about the contest. The deadline for submitting entries is December 5th. We'd love to hear from you and the children in your life!

* MATH CLUB
http://www.mathcats.com/explore/mathclub.html

??? What Is Math Club ???

"Math Club is a bunch of people getting together to play with math. You might play games that use math, or use math to create works of art, or make up puzzles and riddles that use math as part of the solution..."

So begins a new page at Math Cats, contributed by Roxanne Mushrall, one of the earliest friends of Math Cats who organized a highly successful Math Club in Alaska. You'll find some good ideas for starting up a math club in your school or community. We will be adding more information to this page over the next months, and we'd love to hear your good ideas!

* UPDATED SITE MAP - organized by topic http://www.mathcats.com/sitemap.html

Of course math abounds on nearly every page of Math Cats, and now it is easier to find the math topic you are looking for on the updated Math Cats Site Map. Did you know, for instance, that there are 7 activities relating to addition and subtraction, and 8 relating to multiplication and division? There are four activities integrating math and writing, dozens integrating art and geometry... and an assortment of other math topics.

So for those who've asked, "Where's the math on Math Cats?" - here's how to find it!

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     MATH FUN: Out to Dinner Math
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Have you seen this little math puzzle yet? Can you figure out how it works? The "grandmother" of Math Cats sent it along yesterday:

"1. Pick the number of times a week you would like to have dinner out. (More than once but less than 10)

2. Multiply this number by 2.

3 Add 5

4. Multiply by 50

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1752... if you haven't add 1751.

6. Subtract the four digit year you were born You should have a three digit number... The first digit was your original number (how many times you want to eat out each week.)

7. The next two numbers are your age!!! (Yes it is!)

2002 is the only year this will ever work, so if you had fun with this pass it around while it lasts.

Even I had fun with this. Love, Grandma Jean"

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     SITE SPOTLIGHT
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* SCHOOL SPREADSHEET SAFARI
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110054/index.html

School Spreadsheet Safari was developed by kids for kids; it was a finalist in the 2001 Thinkquest Jr. competition. The lively site is useful for kids and teachers at the elementary and middle school levels. In the classroom activities section are suggestions for using spreadsheets with various subjects including math, science, and language arts. The site also includes a brief history of spreadsheets, a scavenger hunt, puzzle, and quiz.

* GEOMETRY FROM THE LAND OF THE INCAS
http://agutie.homestead.com

Much of this interactive site is geared for high school geometry students, but the section on Incan geometry (with many photographs) will interest younger students too.

* THE LITTLE MATH PUZZLE
http://www.sprucelog.com/lmp/

This math puzzle site no longer presents new weekly puzzles, but you can still find hundreds of interesting challenges in the archives and the section of interactive puzzles. Many of the puzzles involve figuring out a missing number in a sequence; there are also numerous puzzles involving words and letters.

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     MATH CATS IS HONORED
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"THE (MATH) CAT'S MEOW" - (Education World's Web Wizard)
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/webwizard052.shtml

Math Cats was Education World's featured "Web Wizard" site for the week of October 28, 2002, in an article called "The (Math) Cat's Meow." You can read a copy of the article at the link above on the Awards page of Math Cats:

http://www.mathcats.com/awards.html

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If you like the Math Cats site and Math Cats News, I hope you will help spread the word. Please forward this Math Cats News to others! If you have received this Math Cats News as a forwarded e-mail and would like to subscribe, you can sign up in the "4 older cats" area of Math Cats:

http://www.mathcats.com/grownupcats.html

Thanks,

Wendy Petti, the one human at Math Cats
mathcats.com