Merry Chrsitmas 2016

Merry Christmas, Mele Kaliki Maka you guys is nutz, 500 people came to my blog yesterday and 507 people came to the House Of Math on Christmas Day! Of that only 332 were "new" that means 675 people had been to the house of math at leaste once and some of you mathaholics 10x or more. Playing math on Christmas-- I can not think of anything better than that: giving the gift of knowledge for Christmas. And I hope some of those 675 had fun and saw how magical math can be...when you see the wonder and they begin asking "what if" on their own. (They won't ask if you don't.) I also envision a few of those being because boxes of blocks got opened under the tree. Right now it's because parents want their kids to have them but one day kids are going to ASK for them...this was a dream of a man named Jerry Mortensen. Dreams can be contagious, and those are the worst and most dangerous ones.

I am famous among some students for saying math takes no holiday.  Yesterday I took one, starting with missing my flight Christmas eve...so then I took the Red Eye and got in at 6:30 AM, got to drive on an empty freeway at 95 MPH which to a Maui boy is a Christmas Present all in itself. I was doing 80 but kept getting passed like I was standing still so I kicked up to 95 just to keep even.

Sunrise out the airplane window at 30,000 feet.

Guess which City I'm in.

Pretty sure here was math involved.

I went to not one, but two Christmas dinners. Basically ate and drank and laughed continuously for 5 hours…got to drive at 95 again and then ate and drank and laughed and played with my old friend Ziggy the cat for 4 more…still not hungry today…view from 30th story flat in downtown LA.

You do math all the time when you calculate how long it will take you to get there...making adjustments for weather and traffic if you miscalculate and then try to make it up while driving in California you could end up here:

No too smoggy.

You do it automatically...switching between bases without thinking...11:55 plus 10 minutes is is 12:05 not 11:65...people who tell me they can't do math, while speaking it in English, that can tell time make me smile. They are simply victims of clever programming. If you can do ha you can do any of it, and by the way you learned to do that. There was a time when you couldn't tell time and you didn't care.  Very few believe me when I say that the reason the masses can't do math is very much on purpose and by design. Meantime they can't each their own kids rudimentary algebra; but don't feel bad neither can the teachers in public high schools who believe a certain percentage have to fail...they are programmed, too. The better to extract wealth from you. No one wants to hear this. Fine.

And I've watched the problem steadily increase for 27 years now...my website just turned 8 so far it's cost me $2,400.00, in that 8 years I've received a little over 50 dollars in donations. LOL. But I do have a small, but loyal cadre of customers who have paid 100 bucks or more for passwords, YOU support this effort, and for that I thank you. Soon many pages that are currently free are going behind paywalls. Those with passwords won’t be affected, freeloaders are welcome to see if they can find what’s currently at Crewton Ramone's House of Math for free some place else.....when you do, come back and post it here or on Face Book, I enjoy watching other people teach math...speaking of that.

Here is a great website, Education Unboxed for users of cuisenaire rods beware though, people seem to have a little problem with division for example this video is the still the number one hit on youtube for division with base ten blocks...although she clearly doesn't know how to model the problem.  She does know how to divide up base ten blocks into groups...like this...I show you how to use base ten blocks to mirror the notation they get in school and show you why the problems are set up the way they are.  Across and up for multiplication across and down for division--but this book will show you how to put it together and make division easy.

Should be able to get quite a bit done this week...starting with fixing webpages and making stuff work again winter maintenance then password changes. Also in January I will be having One our live Q&A's/AMA's via google chat just look for the link. And on the 21st a live 4 to 5 hour training...those of you who got passwords during the sale ought come as part of your free gifts. Anybody, that bought anything is welcome at the Q&A's/AMA's.  Other's mark your calendar and come on the 21st for $50.00.