You Can't Keep Slope Down: And Other Skill-Building Math Activities, Grades 8-9

by Faye Nisonoff Ruopp, Paula Poundstone

Are you looking for a fun way to engage students in improving and retaining their mathematical skills? Whether your students need a curricular supplement, a summer review package, or an opportunity to do math at home with parents, humor them with Math with a Laugh . Math with a Laugh brings together math practice and comedy - some would say for the first time - offering students and teachers funny and functional skills-development experiences. Longtime math teacher Faye Nisonoff Ruopp provides problems carefully crafted to help children strengthen their mathematical thinking. Faye's former student, star comedian Paula Poundstone, sets the problems within funny stories so entertaining to read and solve that students will become immersed in the mathematics. In You Can't Keep Slope Down eighth and ninth graders encounter age-appropriate problems involving ratios and proportions, simplification of numerical expressions, identification of the meaning of variables and constants, the solving of polynomials and quadratics, the application of the Pythagorean theorem, and the measurement of central tendency in a dataset. Each problem links directly to state and national standards and increases students' capabilities with foundational and computational principles. Math with a Laugh reinforces basic skills and improves retention in class, over the summer, or at home. Ruopp's teaching notes provide answers and help you reinforce the concepts behind the problems, then extend them into other mathematical learning. Math with a Laugh will enliven any math environment. It's an effective way to help kids build and retain mathematical knowledge and a humorous opportunity to turn rote skill drills into enjoyable learning.

128 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2007

About the author

Faye Nisonoff Ruopp is a longtime math teacher and author of math-related children's instructional books. Her frequent co-author is comedian Paula Poundstone, a former student of hers.