February 22, 2007 

Mathematical update: Please note that numbers up to twenty are supposed to be written out, but I have taken liberty here to by-pass this.

3/4ths of the family laundry was serviced by the local Laundromat in 5 days. 2 days worth of laundry remain. At the present rate of pushing quarters into machines, the cost for a family of nine (who uses disposable diapers for the baby and has a graduated volume of clothes from size 4T on up) at the Laundromat per week comes to $39.00. At 52 weeks a year this comes to an annual amount of $2,028.00. This cost does not include any deep cleaning laundry such as curtains and bedspreads, camping laundry such as sleeping bags, and it definitely does not take into account the stomach flu and the impact that makes on the quantity of washings.

At the base price of $2,028 per year, it makes one think that a washer and dryer is a good deal even with water and electricity, and even more so, a septic system that can handle the laundry load is an outstanding deal, although they cost in the $6000 to $8000 range and are still suspect in heavy rains. Either way, it has been an interesting time of estimating things, however, some things are known now for sure. It is known that the trunk of a Toyota Echo needs two inches more headway to accommodate a tall laundry basket, which with repeated trips the basket would have to be replaced with a low and wide one. The problem there is that Matthew’s closet is mathematically and functionally better organized with a tall one. It gives more vertical space for hanging dress pants for Sunday, therefore, math relates once again to another subject, and an important one at that since we are commanded to honor the Sabbath and not to forsake assembling ourselves with believers. This laundry basket dilemma was remedied by using the van that accommodates many laundry basket sizes. We did not take the time to figure out the difference in gasoline usage between the two vehicles and compare that to the cost of purchasing new laundry baskets for the smaller and more efficient vehicle.

Today Hope and Matthew tried to figure out how many dryers really warm up the Laundromat since the temperature was slightly warmer than the last trip. It appears that 14 dryers running did raise the temperature slightly, compared with only 4. We are still working on percents relating to these numbers.

There does not seem to be a better mathematical arrangement of washers and dryers in the Laundromat to generate more income, however, it is strongly believed that changing the grunge-orange-dirty pink color of the walls to a more neutral color would attract more clients. Then again, perhaps the sickening color of the present walls makes people so sick that more laundry is generated along the lines of stomach bug laundry. We suppose that a survey could shed some light on this.

At the present time, the quarters I saved for camping have been swallowed by the machines, meaning that in 5 days it is possible to lose quarters that have been saved up for 254 days. With the remaining time left before the next proposed camping trip, this means that we will schedule our next trip next to a river and wash our clothes like the Indians and pioneers. Actually we don’t know if Indians washed their clothes so we have to go look that up. What a wonderful way to connect math to history.

We have not been totally successful in using our math knowledge. We tried to do something with irrational numbers with the 5 days of quarter loss / 254 saving days and failed. This is because irrational numbers do not make rational sense to us at this time. Perhaps this is because we are not sure if an irrational number has a place on the number line. If they do, we welcome them. If not, we just want to know where in the world they belong.

If we ever get the chance, what we REALLY want to do with our lives is come up with some cool Venn diagrams that relate to this whole thing.

So back to the books or counting toilet overflows, whichever comes first.

February 18, 2007 

During the past seven days I have been very busy attending to many details surrounding the loss of our septic system, causing me to consider that perhaps building an emergency outhouse and washing clothes in the creek was in store for us.  That thought occurred to me while at the Laundromat yesterday with multiple washers and dryers serving me, while I shivered without any heat in the building for three hours. The dryers did nothing to warm it up so I stood outside for a while and thought about the likelihood of returning in a few days to do the laundry again since cold weather remains on the horizon.  Reminisced about waiting for the school bus as a child in cold temperatures.  Overall I have been enjoying the Yankee weather and the ice puddles in my yard.  I am not enjoying the loss of toilets, running water, dishwashing, and the washing machine. 

The other thing taking up more attention than usual is our math lessons.  Recently I was inspired to teach math in a dual way – to continue with curriculum but to add a missing part.  This inspiration came from a young man who recently shared with us how math professors at the university level really only serve themselves and the university with their math efforts.  He talked of math being applicable, practical, and interesting on a day to day basis.  As I pondered his thoughts at a later time (much larger thoughts than I just related to you), I realized that other subjects such as English and history I had taken a dual approach – #1 the facts and #2 the real life getting your hands dirty with it – but with math I had relied on just trying to get through the curriculum.  This is due to the fact that I have never really liked math.  When I look back over my school days, my math teachers were bored themselves so I was bored and did the minimum to get the grade.  It seems in our society we don’t really use math that much anymore – everything is instantly done for us. 

The question became …. how to become an enthusiastic, creative, and thinking math mom.  Knowing that I am far deficient, I rallied up some help.  On Tuesdays, we are using our eyes and brains to arrange things the smartest way we can figure out … when counting.  This we are achieving through the Grapes of Math book, which has colorful things to count in large picture format, with poetry to match the creative count.  I like the poetry, the kids like the counting.  When we are through with the book, we will have to find ways to apply it to marbles or something else we toss across the floor.  On Wednesdays, I am reading from Mathematicians are Real People Too.  So far we have had stories about Pythagoras and Thales.  I have had the children guess how they solved certain problems before reading the account.  No one could figure out the answers.  Why?  Because we do not observe well.  So observation must be our friend.  This requires the skill of attention.  That’s when it dawned on me … not one of us is that attentive.  Character skills and math?????  Oh, no!!! 

On Thursdays, Penrose the Cat arrives to purr us into a math mentality.  Last week was the 0s and 1s and base two.  With a little help from my husband, we not only learned about base two, but it was applied to computers, light bulbs, curling irons, electricity, voltage, batteries and bombs.  Yes, bombs.  Today we did square roots and irrational numbers, which are, err, irrational.  They can’t be made into fractions? Still working on those.  Made several calls to my husband this morning about this irrational stuff.  Still don’t get it all but I do like the story of the cat as he is a real cat that lives with the mathematician who wrote the book.  I also kept thinking about numbers and it bugs me that some numbers never resolve themselves. You know, 1.34892837489…  It’s the dot, dot, dot that just plagues me.  How can they be real numbers if they don’t have an end?  What if there is a repeating, endless pattern to what comes after the dot?  To a musician, not resolving something is, well, uh, sin.  All good musical compositions depend on accurate and aesthetic resolution of harmony and melody, put in time with rhythm.  Hmmm.  That poses a dilemma.  Math is also accurate.  Can math also be aesthetic?  This is getting scary. 

Fridays, perhaps the best day of all, I have assigned to the best and most familiar chocolate to me from days back home – Hershey’s.  A Hershey bar actually snuck its way into our math lesson two weeks ago.  Before we could unwrap it, we noted how the wrapper was measured, examined the data on the wrapper in the form of calories – grams – percentages of the daily diet (a math/science lesson in itself), and brainstormed how inventory is done for chocolate bars in the grocery store how to stock a store, and how to price such a candy bar for the benefit of the maker and distributor and still get the consumer to purchase it.  We finally unwrapped the chocolate bar, but showed great restraint in eating it.  There were 16 sections, conveniently divided into eight portions for 7 children and 1 math-hopeful mom.  You know, 7 + 1 = 8.  We counted the 16 several ways, discussed how to find out grams per portion, and finally when exhausted with the math end of it, gobbled it up.  Since then, two packs of Kissables, another Hershey’s product, have snuck their way into math.  Again, mathematical attention was applied to their wrappers, except this time we estimated how many kisses were in each bag.  How would that relate to the weight?  Did a certain number of kisses equal the weight?  We won’t tell – it’s our secret.  We did divide each bag into the colors found therein, and then bar graphed the results, showing that there were very different amounts of red, blue, green, etc. in each bag.  The reward?  Approximately 10 kisses per person.  Approximately might be a good mathematical term, but to the person who gets less, this is a character bender.  I again was aghast.  Character and math?  Sounds like a plague.  This is truly math “sealed with a kiss.”  Since that time, Hershey’s Reeses Peanut Butter Cups also arrived. Now how to take Hershey’s Almond Joy Bars and add some coconut to it all.  (You know the old commercial:  “Sometimes you feel like a nut.”  I always feel like one.) 

Do these mathematical endeavors translate into real life?  Well, yes, as a matter of fact, this week I bear testimony.  Instead of attacking the septic problems in the usual manner, I have creatively counted toilet overflows, estimated how many towels it takes to clean one up one overflow that I don’t have a washer to wash, divided three toilets into possible overflow numbers, determined how many children can bathe in one tubful of water at five minutes each to keep the water hot, calculated how many trips in the cold to the Laundromat it will take to get through six work days per week, worked through which machine and its cost in quarters is the most economical, contemplated if there would be a smarter mathematical arrangement of washers and dryers in the Laundromat to generate more space and therefore income but decided that I would rather just paint the walls a different color, calculated how long it will take me to replenish my quarter fund, and so forth.   

As to my kids, they have just divided a bag of Hershey’s valentine kisses in red and white and ate them with one small problem.  Some were fed to the dog, and chocolate can kill dogs.  Well,  I’m off to be homeschool vet mom and check it out.