Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!marla@Sun.COM
From: marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: making a difference
Message-ID: <5796@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 88 00:11:31 GMT
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Making math fun...I would say the best thing to do is play games
that require logical thinking and/or math.  Two games come to 
mind immediately - Five (which I've mentioned here before) and
Khala, or Calla, or Boa, or some Chinese name I can't remember.

Since your niece likes reading so much,  she might enjoy Five,
since it is a word guessing game.  After playing it (or maybe
playing Four, which would be easier),  you can
show her how it is related to math.  Each word is a set of 
letters, and the answers are the number of unique elements
in the intersection of the guessed word and the secret word.
Sounds awful, but it would be fun and easy to see if you drew
the sets (words) as circles with the elements (letters) floating
inside, and overlap the circles where the intersection is, with
the common letters in the intersection of the circles.

The other game, Khala, is ancient and common to many cultures.
I learned in in Jr. High school math class or club or something.
There are numerous variations.  The rules are very simple (I
think a child of 6 could play) but the potential for strategy
is enormous, especially when you play with more pebbles.

I'll post the rules in 2 seperate articls.

Marla Parker		(415)336-2538
{major backbone}!sun!marla
marla@sun.com