Have you ever thought of you about how valuable number tricks are in the classroom? Imagine this: Kid hears number trick. Kid loves number trick. Kid finds other kids to try the number trick on. Other kids love number trick. Kids all over the place are finding more number tricks and solving mental mathematical computations because the number tricks are so fun. Am I right?
Why not include more number tricks in your math classroom this year? I think it's safe to say that kids will look forward to class in a way they have not before!
This number trick is a fun one to start with and it's been around forever because I remember it when I was a kid!
Were you thinking of gray elephants in Denmark? WHAA--??! You were! See, I told you I was a mind reader!
This trick works because the result of adding together the digits of a multiple of nine will always give you "9", so subtracting 5 gives you 4, which in turn gives you the letter "D". It's based on the logical assumption that the number trick "victim" will choose Denmark when asked to choose a country starting with the letter "D". It also assumes that an elephant will be chosen as a circus animal starting with the letter "E", and, of course, elephants are gray. Now, it's very rare, but you may get one or two people who MIGHT say Dominican Republic instead of Denmark. I know this because it happened with me when I tried this trick on my daughter. To be honest, I did wonder if she might say Dominican Republic because she loves Geography, but I was sure when she said, "I'm not sure how to pronounce the country I chose". I quickly ascertained that she had chosen Dominican Republic and not Denmark. Then, a quick brain search on my part to find an animal starting with "O" led me to ask her, "Why are you thinking of orangutans in The Dominican Republic?" She was so shocked that I knew she had been thinking of this.
For more math tricks, visit Learn With Math Games. Let me know if you try this. I would love to hear whether or not this worked for you and if you had anyone who chose Dominican Republic!