September 2009

News/Events

Congratulations to Zeke, Haley, Satya, Sarvesh, Sean, Sachin and Mitul for advancing to the next level at the St. Peters Chess Club.

Happy September Birthday to Joseph, Katie, William, Alexandria, Matt and everyone we might have missed! Also Happy Birthday to the owners of BEST Tutoring, Molly & Tim!

Sept. 3: FLL Smart Move Kickoff

Sept. 7: Closed for Labor Day

Sept. 13: Molly’s Math Birthday Blast! – 2pm
Build an ice cream sundae and learn dollar tricks!

Oct. 3:  Scholastic Chess Tournament 11:30am

Ever wonder what the numbers on a dollar bill symbolize?

The bill’s serial number is the most prominently displayed set of digits on the dollar, but they’re not alone. If you take out a dollar, you’ll notice there are four large numbers in the corners of the bill’s open space. Like the encircled letter to the left of Washington’s portrait, these numbers tell which Federal Reserve Bank issued the note. (Each Fed’s number corresponds the letter of the alphabet assigned to the bank, with A=1, B=2, and so on.)

The tiny letters and numbers that appear on the top left and bottom right of the bill’s obverse indicate the position of the note on the Treasury’s printing plates. If your dollar bill has a tiny “FW” before this code, those letters indicate that it was printed at the Treasury’s facility in Fort Worth, Texas, rather than in Washington, D.C.

-Excerpt from an article by Ethan Trex: http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/32057.html

Tips & Techniques: per CENT

Percent is an appropriate topic for first and second grade students if it is presented as an outgrowth of Counting, Wholes and Parts, and Proportional Thinking.

Percent means “parts per hundred,” “how many for each hundred”:
per – (for each) + cent (hundred, as in century, cents …).

First and second graders learn quickly that 100% is the “whole thing,” “all of it,”:

• “100% orange juice” means “made only of oranges.”
• “100% right” means “all right, none wrong.”

Kids who have learned to mentally compute half of various quantities have no trouble learning that 50% means “half of it.” After all, 50 is half of 100!

• “50% off” means “half price.”
• “50% right” means “half right, half wrong.”

Similarly, 25% means “a quarter,” since it is “half of a half” and 25 is half of 50.

Second and third grade students who have learned to count in groups and know that percent means “how many for each 100” can apply that knowledge to solve problems like:

• “How much is 15% of 300?” (Count 15 for each hundred … 3 hundreds … 15 + 15 + 15 = 45.)
• “How much is 12% of 250?” (Count 12 for each hundred … 2 whole hundreds (12 +12) and half of a hundred (6) … 12 + 12 + 6 = 30.)

Not that all these questions can be done orally, without ever using pencil and paper!

The History of the Dollar

Money plays an important role in our everyday lives. Most of us know that the word cent refers to 1/100 of a dollar, just as the word century means 100 years and the word centipede refers to an insect with 100 legs. But what do you know about the word dollar?

The word dollar is much older than the American unit of currency, and is used to refer to currency in many other countries as well. In 1519, coins were first minted in a town in Bohemia called Joachimsthal (known today as Jachymov in the Czech Republic). The word thaler was a shortened version of the original word for the coins, which were known as Joachimsthaler. The English version of thaler became dollar, and the name was applied to similar coins in Central Europe, including the Spanish peso. Pesos, or dollars, were widely circulated in Britain’s North American colonies due to a shortage of official British coins. That’s why, after the United States gained its independence, the new station chose “dollar” as the name of its currency instead of keeping the British pound.

Celebrate Math on September 13

Please join us from 2pm to 4pm for a real Math celebration to get your school year moving in the right direction.  See what’s NEW at BEST Tutoring.

Build your own sundae, play chess and learn some Dollar tricks and origami.