Sports as a math memory aid
My son is a big sports fan and has a very good memory for sports. Speaking to him about this, we realized there are some numbers he knows very well: Athletes’ jersey numbers.
The number 99 belongs to one man: Wayne Gretzky. It is also 9×11.
And so, for sporty kids, we developed a downloadable multiplication table using the jersey numbers of hockey players. We’re going to offer it free on the Askey Studio site for a couple of months for now.
We hope teachers and parents will find this helpful for young sports fans.
Associating players with math facts may produce that positive attitude kids need. Perhaps “Orr times Coffie equals Giroux” is a first step for young math students to get to “4×7 = 28.”
Thanks to Cade Askey for his ideas and research on this project.
