Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!mcnc!ecsvax!gds@spam.istc.sri.com
From: gds@spam.istc.sri.com (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: making a difference
Message-ID: <5826@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 12 Nov 88 22:26:51 GMT
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Here's some things I did/had as a child that encouraged my interest in
math:

Have a lot of math books around.  If your child likes to read, odds
are they'll pick the books up and look at them.  The books don't have
to be technical; books of fun math puzzles should suffice.  I had some
math books from Isaac Asimov (Realm of Numbers and Realm of Algebra)
which introduced me to real and imaginary numbers, square roots, etc.,
long before I ever had to use them.

Play card games.  I used to spend lots of time playing cards with my
sister and my mother.  Playing cards gets one acclimated to thinking
about probability and combinatorics.  Playing chess and backgammon
also helps.  I suppose any game where some type of strategy is
involved will develop creative logical thinking in the child.

I used to play with compasses.  I started out by just drawing circles,
but eventually I discovered you could use them to bisect angles,
insrcribe squares, etc.  If mechanical drawing is offered, encourage
your child to take it (at the same time with geometry if possible).
Taking mechanical drawing helped both my sister and myself in
geometry.

--gregbo