If we take the time to notice our surroundings, I think we may be surprised at just how much math we have in our every day environment.  Take the photo to the left.  It’s something most kids are familiar with.  But do they know that it represents the multiplication problem 4 x 6.  If they count the number of rows (4) and then multiply by the number of columns (6), they can quickly discover how many total eggs there are.

But there’s more.  In the space of my kitchen, I quickly found these two other multiplication arrays.  One, 3 x 4, was in the mat by the sliding glass door, and the other 2 x 3, was on the wall.  If I looked closer, I’m sure I could find more.

I then walked into the family room and noticed the rotational symmetry of the small rectangular sections that made up circles on the floor rug.  I could figure out the angle measurement of each section by dividing the number of sections into 360 degrees.

I then realized that the rug was made up of concentric circles, circles within circles that share a common center. That gave me a thought which led me to the backyard.  Throwing a rock into the pool, I was able to make concentric circles of waves.  Okay, that was cool.

And since I was already in the backyard, I glanced around and found the fern.  Ferns are beautiful representations of fractals, or self-similarity…patterns that repeat over and over but smaller and smaller.

Math is the language that we use to describe our world.  If we teach kids to look for the math that surrounds them, we just may be able to get them to understand that math, real math, is a lot more than simply adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.