Friday, November 20, 2009

bright kids

I taught some clever 11 year olds today.  I gave them the task of working out how many squares were in this square:



then in this square


then in a 4 x 4 square.

Then I asked them to work out the formula.  I gave them a little clue to help them out, and after about 15 minutes, 2 kids got it.  I was impressed.  Could you work it out? 
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5 comments:

  1. LaraNovember 20, 2009 at 8:34 PM

    I don't know if there's a simpler version, but something like:

    n^2 + (n-1)^2 + (n-2)^2...

    where n is the number of squares per side.

    I'm probably not as smart as an 11 year old! (Is that 5th grade?!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simone R.November 20, 2009 at 10:31 PM

    That's it! Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LaraNovember 21, 2009 at 9:10 AM

    Cool! I am as smart as a 5th grader!

    ReplyDelete
  4. KutzNovember 24, 2009 at 8:16 AM

    Nice work Lara! There is some mathematical notation to express your perfect answer more concisely than that, but I'm too stupid to know how to get the comments section of a blog site to draw sigmas and stuff like that.

    ReplyDelete
  5. KutzNovember 24, 2009 at 8:16 AM

    Smart kids indeed, Simone. They did very well!

    ReplyDelete

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