September 13, 2025 • 38 mins
Reach out to Dave Cole on his website - https://davecolebooks.com/
T.D. Flenaugh interviewed Dave Cole, a math enthusiast since third grade, who shared his journey from loving math puzzles to a career in engineering and computer science. He emphasized the importance of making math fun and engaging for children. Cole discussed his summer math camp for elementary school kids. He also highlighted the series of math-themed mystery books that he authored for kids. Cole advised parents to incorporate math into everyday activities and to use puzzles and games to make learning enjoyable.
Here is a list of games shared in the episode:
- Supply and Demand Game (a tag-style outdoor game simulating food chains and resource management)
- Mobius Strip Activity (cutting and exploring properties of Mobius strips)
- Digital Clock Equation Game (making equations from the numbers on a digital clock)
- Sudoku Puzzles
- Equations (a strategy math game where you start with the solution and find ways to reach it)
- 24 (a card game where you use four numbers to make 24 with basic operations)
- Set (a pattern recognition card game)
- "Dave" Math Card Game (a custom game similar to War, using addition, subtraction, and multiplication based on card color)
We drop new episodes every Saturday at 5 p.m. Pacific Time.
Follow us:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fallingforlearning/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/fallingforlearning/
https://linktr.ee/falling4learning
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
TD Flenaugh (00:00):
TD, math, it is sometimes a scary
(00:03):
subject for people, verydifficult to master. For others,
we have an expert today. Youwant to stick around, because
he's going to give usstrategies, tips and some
insights on to make sure, intomaking sure that your child is
going to be math ready?
Okay, so thank you so much forjoining us today. Dave Cole,
(00:28):
welcome to the falling forlearning podcast.
Dave Cole (00:30):
Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward
to the conversation.
TD Flenaugh (00:35):
We always ask our guest... What is that thing that
made you fall in love withlearning?
Unknown (00:43):
Probably
Dave Cole (00:45):
Probably my third grade teacher. I think I can go,
think I can go back to there,and particularly when it came to
math. I was always good in math,so I kind of thought as long as
I was getting hundreds on thetest, I did not really need to
do the homework. She and mymother did not quite agree with
(01:05):
that, with that thinking, sothey convinced me that I needed
to rethink that. But what mythird grade teacher did is she
started giving me more homeworkand harder homework, and a lot
of what she gave me were mathkind of puzzles, and I just fell
in love with it. I didn'trealize I was doing a lot more
(01:27):
work than everybody else in theclass, but I was doing something
that I really liked, and I stillto this day, do math puzzles and
logic problems and things likethat. It's just a way to kind of
keep my brain moving all thetime.
TD Flenaugh (01:43):
Wonderful. Okay, so how did those skills and
strategies that you learned fromthat original spark from your
love of learning, how did itinfluence what you do today?
Dave Cole (01:57):
Everything I've done in my career has been kind of
math related since then. So Iwent to school. I got a
mechanical engineering degree, amath degree, a computer science
degree. I wasn't quite sure whatI was going to do, so I was kind
of covering my bases there. Andeverything I've done in my
career on the computer side, onthe engineering side, there's
(02:18):
always been some math componentthat is in there, and it's why
it's never really been a job forme, because you're solving
problems, and to me, it's reallyno different than the puzzles I
was solving when, when I wasback in third grade. So you just
keep solving problems. They're alittle bit harder than than they
were before, but that's what'skind of kept me going,
TD Flenaugh (02:40):
wow. Okay, and so tell us about your educational
journey. Yeah, so your collegesthat you went to and all of
that.
Dave Cole (02:53):
So I started down at a smaller school down in
southern Missouri calledSoutheast Missouri State, ended
up graduating from theUniversity of Missouri in
Columbia and again, withmechanical engineering degree. I
figured somewhere around mysenior year that that was maybe
not what I wanted to do.
But here I am, I'm, I'm, youknow, nine semesters and eight
(03:17):
semesters in, it's like, okay,so I graduated with mechanical
engineering, got a job as amechanical engineer, immediately
went back and and started goingto school and and I picked up my
math and computer sciencedegrees and kind of made that
career shift about about fiveyears in.
TD Flenaugh (03:38):
So that was, was that graduate school, or that
was just another or was itanother bachelor's
Dave Cole (03:45):
or another bachelor's? Yes, so I have many
bachelors piled up on top ofeach other, and never did go the
Master's route, but so I'm kindof not as deep, but I'm broad.
TD Flenaugh (03:55):
So that is so interesting. I know a
lot of people, they go right forthe graduate school, and what
made you do the bachelor's againinstead of doing like a masters
or something like that?
Dave Cole (04:10):
I think I was 22 years old, and I didn't think it
all the way through, I probablyshould have, should have gone
that route. It would not havebeen probably much more work.
What I did instead was kind ofpursue two bachelors at the same
time. That kind of worked intomy work schedule. Okay, so it
ended up working out, workingout fine as as a result,
TD Flenaugh (04:32):
that's a different path, and definitely might,
might, you know, work for otherpeople as well. So that's,
that's, I like, that newperspective, a different
perspective of how you did that.
So now tell us about those youknow what you do now that you're
coming to really share withparents and educators out there
(04:53):
as it relates to math.
Dave Cole (04:57):
Yeah, so I, I was working on. I was working at
Facebook at the time, now calledmeta. I during the summer. I
also ran this summer math campfor elementary school kids, and
as as part of that math camp, Imean, it's cruel. It's
summertime, and I'm making yougo to math camp for a week.
(05:17):
Actually, none of them wanted tobe their parents wanted them to
be there. Okay, so in fact, Iasked the very first day. I
said, How many of you want to behere? How many of you are here
because your parents signed up?
Only one kid admitted to beingactually wanting to be there. So
I said, Okay, so here's my jobfor this week, is I have to
change your mind. So we playedgames. We did puzzles, we had
(05:40):
competitions. Kids lovecompetitions. And can
TD Flenaugh (05:48):
you stop for one second? Yeah, what kind of game?
And I know that there are lotsof parents and teachers that are
suspicious of fun. So can youtell me what that kind of math
game was? Because, like, be giveus some specifics, because
sometimes we are teaching kidsthings, or, you know, in but
they're having fun, yeah,
Dave Cole (06:08):
yeah. And I'll tell you one of them, we did a, it
was in essence, a supply anddemand game to them. It was a TD
game. So some of the studentswere assigned to be food. Some
of them were assigned to beanimals. Some of them were, you
know, assigned to be predators.
So the animals had to go afterthe food. The predators went
(06:31):
after the animals. We had somepeople that went after animals
or food, and you had to collect,you know, get enough food, and
if you didn't get enough food,then you died. So after one
round, there were less kids, andwe played this. We probably
played it four times.
TD Flenaugh (06:49):
So never said, you said this was like, tag. So this
is like, we're up moving aroundand doing this.
Dave Cole (06:56):
Yeah, we actually did it out on out on the field. So
they got to run around, and theyactually had little flags, like
flag football. So to to catchthem, you would grab a flag. And
if you were an animal, you hadto get four food flags,
otherwise you would die. And youhad a certain amount of time,
you had to have enough food,right? And we switched some
rules around. Then we went backinside, and I said, so what
(07:21):
happened when you die? Oh, well,there wasn't enough food. So
that got us into supply anddemand, and we could talk about
supply and demand. If there'snot enough enough supply and we
have more demand than supply,there's problems with that. Or
what happens if there's too muchsupply and not enough demand,
(07:41):
and it allowed us to kind oftalk about some math subjects.
But they got it because ofplaying this game.
TD Flenaugh (07:49):
Love it. Yeah, so did you make this game up? Or
someone showed you
Dave Cole (07:53):
we we made that game up. So I was doing the math camp
at the time with my son, who wasin high school, and I will give
him credit for this one. Ibelieve he actually came up with
the with that game, and I helpedhim hone it a little bit. But
yeah, so it was great. So it wasa great way to talk about math
concepts. We built bridges, likea lot of times you'll do in STEM
(08:17):
we built bridges out ofdifferent things. And we talked
about, why are trianglesstronger than just a straight
beam and things like that? Butthey were able to see it because
we were putting weights onthese, and some were crashing
and some were not. So it was itwas seeing them. It was
visualizing. We did a lot ofthings with Mobius strips and
(08:39):
strips of paper, and I wouldtake a I would take a loop of
paper. I just Mobis
TD Flenaugh (08:45):
strip, Mobius.
Strips. Mobius. Okay, tell usmore about So,
Dave Cole (08:50):
so we started with just a strip of paper, and so
we're going to do some math withthe strip of paper, and you fold
it around so it makes a ring.
Okay, so I've got this ring, andwhat happens if we cut this ring
in half? Long ways? Well, youget two rings out of it. Say,
Okay, so a mobius strip. I takethat same strip of paper, but
before I connect it together, Iput one little twist in it, so
(09:12):
now it becomes a mobius strip,which mathematically changes
everything. So now you cut thatin half the same way we did, but
you don't get two rings. It justmakes one bigger ring, and if I
cut it in half again, it made aneven bigger ring. So we just
talked about, why, why was that?
(09:34):
So we can get into some prettyhigh level stuff with elementary
school. I've taught that samelesson at the high school level,
and just the same little ahamoment on their face when
they're going, Whoa. And thensomeone will always ask, What
happens if I make two twists inthere? I said, let's do that. So
(09:56):
then they were making twotwists, and you cut that in
half, and something differenthappened. Twist. It actually
makes two rings, but they'reconnected together this time,
and three twists, it doessomething different every time.
It does something a littledifferent. So now I had these
kids begging me for paper andglue sticks and and scissors so
they could they could do that.
Now there's a lot of complexmath behind why it all works,
(10:17):
but that wasn't really thepurpose. The purpose was to show
math is more interesting thanthey think. It's not worksheets,
it's not calculations, it is allaround us.
TD Flenaugh (10:38):
The rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook
or your go to resource forhelping kids to learn to fall in
love with writing. It has thetips, tools, resources,
strategies and skill buildingactivities to help kids fall out
(11:03):
of writing Hoot and into Loving.
To write, get your book settoday.
Tiffany Curry (11:22):
Taking advantage of when kids ask questions,
yeah, you can just use that as agreat learning opportunity. So
for example, I was talking to akid recently about how one of
the kiddos in my child's care ison vacation, and they were
asking me, oh, where is she, youknow? And I'm like, Oh, she's in
(11:46):
Washington, DC. And they'relike, where's that, you know? So
we have a whole conversationabout the 50 states, yeah,
that's the nation's capital, andwhat state we live in, and it's
on the West Coast, and DC is onthe east coast. And, you know,
(12:06):
like I said, there's 50 states,and, yeah, we live in the city,
you know, the city that we livein, and we live in the state
that we live in, the cities inthe state. And just, it could
become a whole, you know, yeah,teaching moment. So again, if
you're paying attention to thequestions that your kids are
asking, the things that they'reinterested in, you could teach
(12:29):
them all kinds of things, andyou you'd be surprised that kids
can really you know, as young asthree four, there's so many
concepts that they can reallygrasp and understand as long as
you're explaining it to them ontheir level, you know, you're
not using collegiate, yeah,verbiage, you know, if you're
(12:51):
explaining it to them on, youknow, using words that they're
familiar with, they couldtotally grasp it. And I whipped
out the 50 states puzzle, yeah.
And, you know, it just engage inand teach them, you know, based
on what they're interested in orcurious about. You know,
(13:12):
sometimes I would also, when mykids, my older kids, were
younger, I would ask them whatthey wanted to learn about,
yeah, and then we would kind ofgo from there, you know, let
them lead the way. And you'llfind that if it's something that
they've told you that theywanted to learn about, when it's
time to go over these things,they'll also be more engaged,
(13:36):
you know, that kind of goesalong with the whole paying
attention thing, you know, whenyou have times where you are
teaching your child use thethings that you've heard them
question you about and orsomething that maybe you guys
were somewhere out and about andyou came Across, I don't know, a
(13:59):
map, for example, and maybe yousaw your child looking at the
map and being curious. And,yeah, you know, you guys could
bring a map home and go overwhat, what's on the map, you
know, things like that.
TD Flenaugh (14:16):
That's yeah, I that. And again, thinking about
the opposite side of that,sometimes we're busy, we're not
in a good mood, and kids areasking us questions, and we're
like, I don't know, or like,that's That's enough questions,
or whatever, but we have tothink on the other side of it,
like, Wait, they're interestedin this, and I could teach them
something from this. And likeyou said, you know, I've seen
(14:39):
very young kids be reallyinterested in planes, and then
they have all kind ofinformation about planes because
it's interesting to them.
They'll look at books. Theycould identify planes. They can,
you know, and you're like, wow,like, but it's like they were
interested in it. They askedquestions about it. You got
books about it. They wrote.
(15:00):
Sometimes they'll have like,advanced vocabulary, like, just
because it's what they'reinterested in. So, you know,
then they will dive deep. Likemost of us, if we're interested
in something, we'll get reallyinto the minutia about it,
granular details aboutsomething, because we just like
it for whatever reason, right?
And that's what you're saying,like, for whatever reason you're
(15:20):
interested in, you know, whensomeone's an artist, they're
interested in art, like, why?
That's just who they are.
Someone else interested inmechanics or planes, someone
else interested in flowers orplants or whatever it is, and,
yeah, so.
Tiffany Curry (15:40):
And it's kind of nurturing those interests
TD Flenaugh (15:48):
that is so good that you were able to bring the
fun with it, with the math,right? That we're up playing,
you know, something that lookslike, maybe resembled tag from
maybe people passing by. Andalso kind of like a maker, kind
of space that you created, wherethey're making things, they're
trying things out, reallyfueling the inquiry for kids
(16:11):
when it came to math. And sothose are some real strategies
that our parents and oureducators can think about. And,
you know, a lot of creativity,like, you know, you're saying
your son, your high school son,helped create that game for you.
So maybe your kids will create agame, or you could create a
game. But really taking mathoutside of the books and paper
(16:34):
and thinking about practicalapplication is, is really some
awesome ways to bring math tothe forefront for children.
Dave Cole (16:42):
Yeah, and we do it.
We do all kind. In fact, my kidsare, you know, they're older
now, my son has a law degree.
Now my daughter's a doctor. Butwhen we get in a car and there's
a digital readout on the clock,we still do this to this day.
Can you make an equation withthose three numbers? So if it's
like 321 that's an easy one, Ican say three minus two is equal
(17:06):
to one, or one plus two is equalto three. And sometimes we'll
throw in factorials and allkinds of things. Sometimes
there's not an equation. Andthen I'll say, what's the next
time where there is a goodequation? So now that's much
higher level thinking, and it'sjust using three numbers on a
clock, and you can play thatanywhere, and we still enjoy
(17:28):
playing that.
TD Flenaugh (17:29):
That's really cool.
Can you back up a little bit? Iheard you say factorials, and
just for our viewers and ourlisteners. Can you explain that
for them?
Dave Cole (17:39):
Sure. So factorial, if I had a number like three
factorial, and mathematically,you write that with a three and
then an exclamation point afterthat, and three factorial means
three times two times one. Fivefactorial would be five times
four times three times two timesone. And factorials can get
very, very big, very, veryquickly and to an elementary
(18:03):
school kid, factorials are not alot of use except for fun. But
when you get to high school andyou start looking at
combinations, and how manycombinations of of, let's say I
have five flower pots I want toarrange them on a shelf. How
many different ways can I dothat? It's five factorial. So
(18:25):
they'll they'll very quicklylearn that. Wow, that's an easy
way of solving some prettycomplex problems.
TD Flenaugh (18:32):
Nice. Thank you so much. Alright, and so tell us
what you're doing now to really,you know, support kids in math
or educators in math.
Dave Cole (18:47):
Yeah, so, so from that camp, one of the things
that I did, I told a lot ofstories. I think I just like
telling stories, and it's mucheasier getting a concept across
if there's a story behind it,because you're not so focused on
the math behind it, it's kind ofthe story. So one of the kids
(19:07):
told me, Oh, Mr. Cole, youshould, you should make these
into books. And I said, Yeah,that would be fun. I'll do that.
And I had some free time. I wasliving in California, kind of
commuting back and forth to StLouis is, which is my hometown,
and sometimes on weekends I hadsome free time, so I said, Okay,
I'm going to start writingthese. I'm going to write, take
(19:30):
one of these stories, expand itout into a book. So I wrote a
mystery story about elementaryschool kids solving mysteries
using math, some math concept.
So I was having fun doing it. SoI wrote one, I wrote another
one, I wrote another one. Andone of my coworkers, I was
talking to him about it, hesaid, You ought to try to get
these published. And 1112, bookslater, yeah, translated into, I
(19:52):
think, seven languages, ninelanguages, I don't know. Yeah.
So. Would, I'm kind of anaccidental author, and it was
really just about tellingstories.
TD Flenaugh (20:06):
Yes, some of what that reminded me a little bit of
math in it that was on, I don'tknow if it's on PBS back in the
day, I don't know. Like, yeah,mysteries being solved with
math.
Dave Cole (20:17):
Yeah, there was a, there was a show called numbers
that was on for a little bit,and it wasn't for kids, and it
was, you know, they had themathematician guy in there who
was solving things going well,the math says that, you know,
whatever. So that just kind ofan intrigued me, and I'm sure
that was kind of in the back ofmy mind when I wrote these,
these books. But kids love them.
I had one little girl write methis tonight, nicest note. She
(20:39):
said, I really didn't like math.
And during covid, I was at home,and my dad brought me the first
math kids book, and I read itand liked it, and then he got me
another one and another one. Andshe said, completely changed my
mind about math. And she said,Now, math is my favorite
(21:02):
subject, and it's my bestsubject. So she said, Thanks for
giving me a chance to learnabout math. And I went, great,
you you got it that that's who Iwas writing this for you.
TD Flenaugh (21:14):
Absolutely. That is so great. And, you know, you
know, shout out to, you know,parents like that. Could be such
a great writing activity too,like just writing to the author
and sharing how a piece ofliterature really helped you and
you enjoyed it. So that's Ireally like that idea, too. So
tell us where we could get yourbook.
Dave Cole (21:37):
So you can find out about on my other website, Dave
Cole books.com very clever name.
And it'll, it'll, you know, tellyou all about the books. Got a
younger series as well calledEmily and Sam. I had some
parents saying, because the mathkids is probably third to sixth
grade kind of range. And I had acouple parents, and this
(21:58):
happened over a course of acouple weeks, I was getting the
same message from multipleparents saying, my kids love
your books, but I have someyounger kids. Could you write a
younger series? And I said,Well, maybe, let's see. So I
wrote the first one. Mypublisher loved it. So there's
three books in that series,probably some more to come on
that as well. That's more forfirst to third kind of grade,
(22:19):
early chapter books. Wow. Soyeah, so sometimes you'll find
them in local bookstores.
They're hit and miss a littlebit. You can always find them on
Amazon, Barnes and Noble com,and all the big, all the big,
big places, but a lot ofindependent bookstores as well.
TD Flenaugh (22:40):
Great. I know, like before the show, you were
telling me at the beginning ofthis, this is the beginning of
the school year, and that youhave a lot of places that you
visit. Can you tell us about,you know, how someone like what,
how someone can get in contactwith you, and then what would
what you do when you go to theirschool?
Dave Cole (22:58):
Yeah, and also through the website. So gaveco
books com, it's got a wholesection on author visits. I've
probably done, I don't know, 150maybe visits Now, throughout
Missouri, Illinois, Indiana,Iowa, bit down to Florida. So it
that, to me, is is fun, andthey're very interactive
(23:21):
presentations. So kids are doingsome math with me, and we do
some stuff with the paperstrips. I do a little magic,
which always keeps some keepsthem interested. Sometimes some
fire appears. I, you know, outof my hands, and you never, you
never know what's going tohappen. So it's a lot of fun,
but I need to be veryinteractive so that the kids are
(23:44):
experiencing that. And I dosomething a little bit different
with younger kids than I do withthe with the older kids. But
yeah, you can contact me rightthrough there. And, yeah, that's
that's fine. I love, love doingthe school visits. I had one,
one teacher tell me when I wason a visit said, we have been
reading your book, and we do itas a read aloud in class and in
(24:07):
the book, I I do have somepuzzles, because I think puzzles
are a great way of teaching mathwithout them knowing they're
learning math, right? I don'teven have to tell them it's math
that they'll figure it out. Andshe said, whenever we get to a
puzzle, then we all break intogroups and we try to solve the
puzzle, and like, groups offour. And I said, that's a
(24:29):
perfect way of using the books,
TD Flenaugh (24:32):
wonderful tell us.
Because I know, you know, I'vetalked a lot about this on the
show, um, just how, you know,there's, like, a lot of kids and
people are like, don't considerthemselves to be mad people, or
they don't like math. What mightyou what have you seen people
doing that contributes to that,that maybe we could, you know,
(24:53):
tell parents or educators liketo be careful not to do that, or
kind of reframe how they're. Aredoing certain things so that we
don't continue this, you know,where people can slow it down,
at least the people i
Dave Cole (25:09):
i, in fact, I actually heard it on your
podcast. I think you made acomment one time. We would never
say, Oh yeah, I just can't readbut, but we're okay saying we
can't do math. So what I try totell parents and what I try to
tell kids? In fact, I'll tellyou when I the very first thing
I do at any school visit, as Ialways ask, how many of you like
(25:32):
math? And in first grade, everyhand will go up. Second grade,
every hand will go up. Lose afew in third grade, but fourth
and fifth grade. And I don'tknow if it's the event of
decimals and fractions or what,but probably by the time I get
to fifth grade, if I get 25%saying they like math, that's
(25:54):
high. So that troubles me. Thatworries me a little bit. So then
I do ask the follow up. I said,if you want to share with me,
tell me why. Tell me why youdon't like math. And I get two
answers, variations of those.
I'll get something like it makesmy head explode, which means,
okay, it's hard. Okay, I get it.
(26:14):
Yeah, that's a variation ofthat. Or it's boring. And
sometimes I'll get that samething, same answer, two answers
from the same kid. And math canbe boring. So what I try to do
is to show that there's mathbeyond what you're doing that is
going to be more interesting.
We'll talk about there's afamous sequence called the
(26:37):
Fibonacci sequence, and it's nothard math. It is. You start with
two ones. I love math patterns.
Start with two ones, and I addthe two ones together, I get a
two. Then I add one and twotogether to get three. So it's
just keep adding the last twonumbers, and they pick up on the
(26:57):
sequence really quick. I letthem kind of discover the
sequence, and then they're kindof shouting out numbers, and
they get lost somewhere around89 because the math gets a
little harder to do in theirhead, but, but they get that.
And I said, So why is thisamazing? Have you ever seen the
sequence before? And they alwayssay, oh no. And I said, but you
really have. And I said, if yougo out and you look at flowers,
(27:21):
every flower that's out therewill have the number of petals
will be a number in theFibonacci sequence. So there are
flowers with 144 petals, butthere aren't any flowers with
100 petals or 82 petals, butthey are some flowers that have
89 petals, and I have picturesof those, so I'll kind of show
those. And then we talk about, Idraw a picture the Fibonacci
(27:45):
sequence. So you can actuallydraw little squares that kind of
keep getting bigger and biggerand bigger. And if you connect
them all together, it makes thisreally cool spiral, and they all
recognize the spiral. And Isaid, So, where have you seen a
shape like that? Think aboutanimals, and they'll, you know,
seashells and things like that.
Then we'll talk about anelephant's trunk looks like that
(28:08):
a pig's tail, so the shape isall around us. I said, so what
if I'm collecting those shellson a beach and a big storm comes
up, hurricane, hurricane, andI'll show them this Fibonacci
spiral next door hurricane, theyhad the exact same shape and and
spiral galaxies and things likethat. And so it's amazing. I
want them to see that that mathis all around us, and you're
(28:33):
going to keep seeing math, evenif you don't like it, and, you
know, it's out there. And themath is going to get more fun,
you know. And that's what Ithat's what I really I, you
know, if I can take anythingaway, I was asked at the end, is
math more interesting than you,than you think? And most of them
will, some begrudgingly, butwill say, yeah, it's more
(28:53):
interesting than we think. Andif I can do that, then, then I
think I've, you know, I'veaccomplished kind of a little
mission that they made, givemath another shot.
TD Flenaugh (29:03):
Yeah, that's, it's good, really, to think about it.
And it's so it's, it is solimitless. And I've had several
people come on, and they have adifferent take on how to do
this. So you have, like, totallynew ideas. But yeah, so there.
So I think maybe it's on us asparents and educators to really
(29:26):
make sure that we arehighlighting and bringing to the
forefront the ways in which mathare all around us, how we could
use it, the applications for it,how to make it fun, how to
integrate it in ways that aremore engaging, but and I think
(29:46):
also embracing just that like itcan be it can be boring
sometimes, but there's all theseother layers that make it more
interesting. But when you'reinterested in it, then the
boring is like. It's boring,right? Like, right, yeah,
Dave Cole (30:03):
and you're willing to go out and learn some on your
own. Because ultimately, I thinkwhere we want kids to do is we
want them to learn on their own,because at some point we're out
of school, and we don't stoplearning. We want to keep
learning. We get to choose morewhat we what we learn, but we
always want people to learn, soI want to help give the skills
(30:27):
to be able to go out and do thelearning. So what I did in the
books is there's an appendix ineach book, each of the math gets
books that talks about the math.
You don't have to get into themath, but if kids are
interested, there's more detailson you know, what does this
really mean mathematically? Andso I think that part's fun as
(30:49):
well. There are also teacherstudy guides for all of the
books as well, or at least mostof the books they those usually
trail the books by by a littlebit. But nice.
TD Flenaugh (31:01):
That is so good. We so definitely in the show notes,
we'll have all this informationand for parents and educators to
really be able to, you know,share these resources with their
kids and really get into thebooks and the fun of math. Okay,
and so you're so experienced,right, and with the math and
(31:24):
everything. But if I'm a parent,could you give me some advice,
or my fifth grader hates math,like, what should I be doing at
home? Or what are some things Icould be doing? You know that
are really practical for me? Youknow, if I'm a parent who is not
an educator.
Dave Cole (31:43):
Yeah, I, you know, for me, and I've done this with
a lot of kids, and gotten theminterested is, is in
mathematical puzzles and andsolving. You know, when I talk
to when I talk to parents, andI'll talk to teachers, they're
saying, Well, I know math ishard, I said, But math is how we
(32:04):
kind of process things in ourbrain. So, so math is also
science, and math is also even,you know how my my son, who's
who's an attorney, he said, I amshocked how much I use math
skills in my job as as a lawyer,just the logical thinking
(32:24):
process. I need to prove this.
How do I get this, this and thisto do that? So, so those skills
are really, really important.
So, yep, maybe they will not docalculus when they when they get
older, not everybody does right,but they are going to need these
other skills, and a lot of thoseare just kind of thinking
(32:45):
skills, logic problems. Kidslike to learn how to do Sudoku
puzzles and things like that.
So, and there's all kinds ofresources that are out there.
You can Google, you know, mathgames for pick a grade and and
there'll be lots of things ormath puzzles for that. For that
age, I coach 1234, like it'sfour now math teams, and we play
(33:10):
a game called equations, whichis just a really heavy duty
thinking game, and the kidsnever will know how, how amazing
math they they are doing. AndI'll just tell you equations
real quick, because it's it's aninteresting game. We're taught
to solve a problem. We are giventhree plus four to get seven
(33:35):
right. Equations. Doeseverything backwards. You start
with the solution, and maybe thesolution is 24 Well, there are
lots of ways to get to 24there's two times 12 and there's
two times 10 plus five minus oneis and it makes kids look at
numbers differently, okay? Andit's a great strategy game, and
(33:57):
I have fifth graders that aredoing, you know, fractional
roots and and powers and things,and they don't know how hard the
math is that they're doing.
They've just found strategiesfor doing that. Another game. I
really two other games. Ireally, really like one game is
called 24 okay? And it's a it'sa card game, and it just has
(34:22):
four numbers on it, and you haveto find a way to make those four
numbers using just addition,subtraction, multiplication,
division to get to 24 using allfour numbers. Okay, great,
great, great game. Another one Ilike is a game called Set SCT,
okay? And it's just patterns,and you have to find four things
(34:45):
that are three things that arealike or different. And it
really and you can play thatwith very young kids, and they,
you will not be able to playwith them long. They will get
very good at it very quickly.
But it's. Really good. Just alogical thinking game. I love
that game, but you can make upyour own flash cards. I think
(35:07):
are, you know, no one likesflash cards but, but in math
camp, I invented the game ofDave. It's my game. I could call
it after me. So it's basicallylike playing the game of war.
You divide the cards up. Youflip over a card, and face cards
are worth 10 points. Everythingelse on nine is nine and eight
and so on. If they're the samecolor, they have to add them,
(35:31):
and it's the first one to comeup with the sum. If one's red
and one's black, you subtractthem. If they're both red, you
multiply them. So there's threedifferent operations that you
can do. What are you reallydoing? You're doing flashcards.
They love playing that gamebecause it became a competition,
and that's all they were reallydoing was was flashcards and
(35:53):
working on their on their mathfacts. So it was fun. I really
they would beg me to play thatwe'd come in in the morning.
Could we play Dave? Could weplay Dave? Sure, yeah, let's go
for it. And that's somethingthat you can do at home with
your kids, right? If they'restruggling with some stuff, you
make it a game, and they don'thave to know they're learning
TD Flenaugh (36:14):
absolutely we are so glad that you came on our
show, another math expert on ourshow with, you know, a total
different twist on how to make amath application fun,
interesting, and even runningaround and and doing it, I love
it, so we are going to make surethat all of that is in the show
(36:36):
notes. And please reach out toDave. Is there any final
anything you want to tellparents or educators, maybe
struggling out there withlearning or just may or may not,
whatever final things,
Dave Cole (36:49):
yeah, it's again, you find a way to get your kids to
to want to learn. So if theylove baseball and hate math,
have them do statistics forbaseball players. They don't
know they're doing math. They'redoing statistics for baseball
players. You know, how manygames behind are we? What's the
(37:09):
magic number? All of thoselittle baseball terms have math
behind all of them. They could,they could get into that. So
find something that they thatthey like, and find a way to
incorporate some some math inthere. Feel free to reach out. I
have I can come up with ideasfor you. So reach out to me
through the website, and I justsay, Hey, give me your
(37:32):
situation. I'll come up withsomething.
TD Flenaugh (37:34):
Love it. Alright.
Thank you so much again.
Audience for you know, listeningin or viewing the falling for
learning podcast, please dosomething today that going to
give your children thecompetitive advantage. Have a
great week. Thank you. Thanksagain for supporting the falling
(37:58):
for learning podcast. NewEpisodes go live every Saturday
at 5pm you can watch us onyoutube.com, at falling for
learning, or listen on all majorpodcast platforms such as Apple,
Google, Audible, Spotify andmuch more. For more resources,
(38:21):
visit falling in love withlearning.com we really
appreciate you. Have a wonderfulweek.
TD, math, it is sometimes a scary
(00:03):
subject for people, verydifficult to master. For others,
we have an expert today. Youwant to stick around, because
he's going to give usstrategies, tips and some
insights on to make sure, intomaking sure that your child is
going to be math ready?
Okay, so thank you so much forjoining us today. Dave Cole,
(00:28):
welcome to the falling forlearning podcast.
Dave Cole (00:30):
Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward
to the conversation.
TD Flenaugh (00:35):
We always ask our guest... What is that thing that
made you fall in love withlearning?
Unknown (00:43):
Probably
Dave Cole (00:45):
Probably my third grade teacher. I think I can go,
think I can go back to there,and particularly when it came to
math. I was always good in math,so I kind of thought as long as
I was getting hundreds on thetest, I did not really need to
do the homework. She and mymother did not quite agree with
(01:05):
that, with that thinking, sothey convinced me that I needed
to rethink that. But what mythird grade teacher did is she
started giving me more homeworkand harder homework, and a lot
of what she gave me were mathkind of puzzles, and I just fell
in love with it. I didn'trealize I was doing a lot more
(01:27):
work than everybody else in theclass, but I was doing something
that I really liked, and I stillto this day, do math puzzles and
logic problems and things likethat. It's just a way to kind of
keep my brain moving all thetime.
TD Flenaugh (01:43):
Wonderful. Okay, so how did those skills and
strategies that you learned fromthat original spark from your
love of learning, how did itinfluence what you do today?
Dave Cole (01:57):
Everything I've done in my career has been kind of
math related since then. So Iwent to school. I got a
mechanical engineering degree, amath degree, a computer science
degree. I wasn't quite sure whatI was going to do, so I was kind
of covering my bases there. Andeverything I've done in my
career on the computer side, onthe engineering side, there's
(02:18):
always been some math componentthat is in there, and it's why
it's never really been a job forme, because you're solving
problems, and to me, it's reallyno different than the puzzles I
was solving when, when I wasback in third grade. So you just
keep solving problems. They're alittle bit harder than than they
were before, but that's what'skind of kept me going,
TD Flenaugh (02:40):
wow. Okay, and so tell us about your educational
journey. Yeah, so your collegesthat you went to and all of
that.
Dave Cole (02:53):
So I started down at a smaller school down in
southern Missouri calledSoutheast Missouri State, ended
up graduating from theUniversity of Missouri in
Columbia and again, withmechanical engineering degree. I
figured somewhere around mysenior year that that was maybe
not what I wanted to do.
But here I am, I'm, I'm, youknow, nine semesters and eight
(03:17):
semesters in, it's like, okay,so I graduated with mechanical
engineering, got a job as amechanical engineer, immediately
went back and and started goingto school and and I picked up my
math and computer sciencedegrees and kind of made that
career shift about about fiveyears in.
TD Flenaugh (03:38):
So that was, was that graduate school, or that
was just another or was itanother bachelor's
Dave Cole (03:45):
or another bachelor's? Yes, so I have many
bachelors piled up on top ofeach other, and never did go the
Master's route, but so I'm kindof not as deep, but I'm broad.
TD Flenaugh (03:55):
So that is so interesting. I know a
lot of people, they go right forthe graduate school, and what
made you do the bachelor's againinstead of doing like a masters
or something like that?
Dave Cole (04:10):
I think I was 22 years old, and I didn't think it
all the way through, I probablyshould have, should have gone
that route. It would not havebeen probably much more work.
What I did instead was kind ofpursue two bachelors at the same
time. That kind of worked intomy work schedule. Okay, so it
ended up working out, workingout fine as as a result,
TD Flenaugh (04:32):
that's a different path, and definitely might,
might, you know, work for otherpeople as well. So that's,
that's, I like, that newperspective, a different
perspective of how you did that.
So now tell us about those youknow what you do now that you're
coming to really share withparents and educators out there
(04:53):
as it relates to math.
Dave Cole (04:57):
Yeah, so I, I was working on. I was working at
Facebook at the time, now calledmeta. I during the summer. I
also ran this summer math campfor elementary school kids, and
as as part of that math camp, Imean, it's cruel. It's
summertime, and I'm making yougo to math camp for a week.
(05:17):
Actually, none of them wanted tobe their parents wanted them to
be there. Okay, so in fact, Iasked the very first day. I
said, How many of you want to behere? How many of you are here
because your parents signed up?
Only one kid admitted to beingactually wanting to be there. So
I said, Okay, so here's my jobfor this week, is I have to
change your mind. So we playedgames. We did puzzles, we had
(05:40):
competitions. Kids lovecompetitions. And can
TD Flenaugh (05:48):
you stop for one second? Yeah, what kind of game?
And I know that there are lotsof parents and teachers that are
suspicious of fun. So can youtell me what that kind of math
game was? Because, like, be giveus some specifics, because
sometimes we are teaching kidsthings, or, you know, in but
they're having fun, yeah,
Dave Cole (06:08):
yeah. And I'll tell you one of them, we did a, it
was in essence, a supply anddemand game to them. It was a TD
game. So some of the studentswere assigned to be food. Some
of them were assigned to beanimals. Some of them were, you
know, assigned to be predators.
So the animals had to go afterthe food. The predators went
(06:31):
after the animals. We had somepeople that went after animals
or food, and you had to collect,you know, get enough food, and
if you didn't get enough food,then you died. So after one
round, there were less kids, andwe played this. We probably
played it four times.
TD Flenaugh (06:49):
So never said, you said this was like, tag. So this
is like, we're up moving aroundand doing this.
Dave Cole (06:56):
Yeah, we actually did it out on out on the field. So
they got to run around, and theyactually had little flags, like
flag football. So to to catchthem, you would grab a flag. And
if you were an animal, you hadto get four food flags,
otherwise you would die. And youhad a certain amount of time,
you had to have enough food,right? And we switched some
rules around. Then we went backinside, and I said, so what
(07:21):
happened when you die? Oh, well,there wasn't enough food. So
that got us into supply anddemand, and we could talk about
supply and demand. If there'snot enough enough supply and we
have more demand than supply,there's problems with that. Or
what happens if there's too muchsupply and not enough demand,
(07:41):
and it allowed us to kind oftalk about some math subjects.
But they got it because ofplaying this game.
TD Flenaugh (07:49):
Love it. Yeah, so did you make this game up? Or
someone showed you
Dave Cole (07:53):
we we made that game up. So I was doing the math camp
at the time with my son, who wasin high school, and I will give
him credit for this one. Ibelieve he actually came up with
the with that game, and I helpedhim hone it a little bit. But
yeah, so it was great. So it wasa great way to talk about math
concepts. We built bridges, likea lot of times you'll do in STEM
(08:17):
we built bridges out ofdifferent things. And we talked
about, why are trianglesstronger than just a straight
beam and things like that? Butthey were able to see it because
we were putting weights onthese, and some were crashing
and some were not. So it was itwas seeing them. It was
visualizing. We did a lot ofthings with Mobius strips and
(08:39):
strips of paper, and I wouldtake a I would take a loop of
paper. I just Mobis
TD Flenaugh (08:45):
strip, Mobius.
Strips. Mobius. Okay, tell usmore about So,
Dave Cole (08:50):
so we started with just a strip of paper, and so
we're going to do some math withthe strip of paper, and you fold
it around so it makes a ring.
Okay, so I've got this ring, andwhat happens if we cut this ring
in half? Long ways? Well, youget two rings out of it. Say,
Okay, so a mobius strip. I takethat same strip of paper, but
before I connect it together, Iput one little twist in it, so
(09:12):
now it becomes a mobius strip,which mathematically changes
everything. So now you cut thatin half the same way we did, but
you don't get two rings. It justmakes one bigger ring, and if I
cut it in half again, it made aneven bigger ring. So we just
talked about, why, why was that?
(09:34):
So we can get into some prettyhigh level stuff with elementary
school. I've taught that samelesson at the high school level,
and just the same little ahamoment on their face when
they're going, Whoa. And thensomeone will always ask, What
happens if I make two twists inthere? I said, let's do that. So
(09:56):
then they were making twotwists, and you cut that in
half, and something differenthappened. Twist. It actually
makes two rings, but they'reconnected together this time,
and three twists, it doessomething different every time.
It does something a littledifferent. So now I had these
kids begging me for paper andglue sticks and and scissors so
they could they could do that.
Now there's a lot of complexmath behind why it all works,
(10:17):
but that wasn't really thepurpose. The purpose was to show
math is more interesting thanthey think. It's not worksheets,
it's not calculations, it is allaround us.
TD Flenaugh (10:38):
The rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook
or your go to resource forhelping kids to learn to fall in
love with writing. It has thetips, tools, resources,
strategies and skill buildingactivities to help kids fall out
(11:03):
of writing Hoot and into Loving.
To write, get your book settoday.
Tiffany Curry (11:22):
Taking advantage of when kids ask questions,
yeah, you can just use that as agreat learning opportunity. So
for example, I was talking to akid recently about how one of
the kiddos in my child's care ison vacation, and they were
asking me, oh, where is she, youknow? And I'm like, Oh, she's in
(11:46):
Washington, DC. And they'relike, where's that, you know? So
we have a whole conversationabout the 50 states, yeah,
that's the nation's capital, andwhat state we live in, and it's
on the West Coast, and DC is onthe east coast. And, you know,
(12:06):
like I said, there's 50 states,and, yeah, we live in the city,
you know, the city that we livein, and we live in the state
that we live in, the cities inthe state. And just, it could
become a whole, you know, yeah,teaching moment. So again, if
you're paying attention to thequestions that your kids are
asking, the things that they'reinterested in, you could teach
(12:29):
them all kinds of things, andyou you'd be surprised that kids
can really you know, as young asthree four, there's so many
concepts that they can reallygrasp and understand as long as
you're explaining it to them ontheir level, you know, you're
not using collegiate, yeah,verbiage, you know, if you're
(12:51):
explaining it to them on, youknow, using words that they're
familiar with, they couldtotally grasp it. And I whipped
out the 50 states puzzle, yeah.
And, you know, it just engage inand teach them, you know, based
on what they're interested in orcurious about. You know,
(13:12):
sometimes I would also, when mykids, my older kids, were
younger, I would ask them whatthey wanted to learn about,
yeah, and then we would kind ofgo from there, you know, let
them lead the way. And you'llfind that if it's something that
they've told you that theywanted to learn about, when it's
time to go over these things,they'll also be more engaged,
(13:36):
you know, that kind of goesalong with the whole paying
attention thing, you know, whenyou have times where you are
teaching your child use thethings that you've heard them
question you about and orsomething that maybe you guys
were somewhere out and about andyou came Across, I don't know, a
(13:59):
map, for example, and maybe yousaw your child looking at the
map and being curious. And,yeah, you know, you guys could
bring a map home and go overwhat, what's on the map, you
know, things like that.
TD Flenaugh (14:16):
That's yeah, I that. And again, thinking about
the opposite side of that,sometimes we're busy, we're not
in a good mood, and kids areasking us questions, and we're
like, I don't know, or like,that's That's enough questions,
or whatever, but we have tothink on the other side of it,
like, Wait, they're interestedin this, and I could teach them
something from this. And likeyou said, you know, I've seen
(14:39):
very young kids be reallyinterested in planes, and then
they have all kind ofinformation about planes because
it's interesting to them.
They'll look at books. Theycould identify planes. They can,
you know, and you're like, wow,like, but it's like they were
interested in it. They askedquestions about it. You got
books about it. They wrote.
(15:00):
Sometimes they'll have like,advanced vocabulary, like, just
because it's what they'reinterested in. So, you know,
then they will dive deep. Likemost of us, if we're interested
in something, we'll get reallyinto the minutia about it,
granular details aboutsomething, because we just like
it for whatever reason, right?
And that's what you're saying,like, for whatever reason you're
(15:20):
interested in, you know, whensomeone's an artist, they're
interested in art, like, why?
That's just who they are.
Someone else interested inmechanics or planes, someone
else interested in flowers orplants or whatever it is, and,
yeah, so.
Tiffany Curry (15:40):
And it's kind of nurturing those interests
TD Flenaugh (15:48):
that is so good that you were able to bring the
fun with it, with the math,right? That we're up playing,
you know, something that lookslike, maybe resembled tag from
maybe people passing by. Andalso kind of like a maker, kind
of space that you created, wherethey're making things, they're
trying things out, reallyfueling the inquiry for kids
(16:11):
when it came to math. And sothose are some real strategies
that our parents and oureducators can think about. And,
you know, a lot of creativity,like, you know, you're saying
your son, your high school son,helped create that game for you.
So maybe your kids will create agame, or you could create a
game. But really taking mathoutside of the books and paper
(16:34):
and thinking about practicalapplication is, is really some
awesome ways to bring math tothe forefront for children.
Dave Cole (16:42):
Yeah, and we do it.
We do all kind. In fact, my kidsare, you know, they're older
now, my son has a law degree.
Now my daughter's a doctor. Butwhen we get in a car and there's
a digital readout on the clock,we still do this to this day.
Can you make an equation withthose three numbers? So if it's
like 321 that's an easy one, Ican say three minus two is equal
(17:06):
to one, or one plus two is equalto three. And sometimes we'll
throw in factorials and allkinds of things. Sometimes
there's not an equation. Andthen I'll say, what's the next
time where there is a goodequation? So now that's much
higher level thinking, and it'sjust using three numbers on a
clock, and you can play thatanywhere, and we still enjoy
(17:28):
playing that.
TD Flenaugh (17:29):
That's really cool.
Can you back up a little bit? Iheard you say factorials, and
just for our viewers and ourlisteners. Can you explain that
for them?
Dave Cole (17:39):
Sure. So factorial, if I had a number like three
factorial, and mathematically,you write that with a three and
then an exclamation point afterthat, and three factorial means
three times two times one. Fivefactorial would be five times
four times three times two timesone. And factorials can get
very, very big, very, veryquickly and to an elementary
(18:03):
school kid, factorials are not alot of use except for fun. But
when you get to high school andyou start looking at
combinations, and how manycombinations of of, let's say I
have five flower pots I want toarrange them on a shelf. How
many different ways can I dothat? It's five factorial. So
(18:25):
they'll they'll very quicklylearn that. Wow, that's an easy
way of solving some prettycomplex problems.
TD Flenaugh (18:32):
Nice. Thank you so much. Alright, and so tell us
what you're doing now to really,you know, support kids in math
or educators in math.
Dave Cole (18:47):
Yeah, so, so from that camp, one of the things
that I did, I told a lot ofstories. I think I just like
telling stories, and it's mucheasier getting a concept across
if there's a story behind it,because you're not so focused on
the math behind it, it's kind ofthe story. So one of the kids
(19:07):
told me, Oh, Mr. Cole, youshould, you should make these
into books. And I said, Yeah,that would be fun. I'll do that.
And I had some free time. I wasliving in California, kind of
commuting back and forth to StLouis is, which is my hometown,
and sometimes on weekends I hadsome free time, so I said, Okay,
I'm going to start writingthese. I'm going to write, take
(19:30):
one of these stories, expand itout into a book. So I wrote a
mystery story about elementaryschool kids solving mysteries
using math, some math concept.
So I was having fun doing it. SoI wrote one, I wrote another
one, I wrote another one. Andone of my coworkers, I was
talking to him about it, hesaid, You ought to try to get
these published. And 1112, bookslater, yeah, translated into, I
(19:52):
think, seven languages, ninelanguages, I don't know. Yeah.
So. Would, I'm kind of anaccidental author, and it was
really just about tellingstories.
TD Flenaugh (20:06):
Yes, some of what that reminded me a little bit of
math in it that was on, I don'tknow if it's on PBS back in the
day, I don't know. Like, yeah,mysteries being solved with
math.
Dave Cole (20:17):
Yeah, there was a, there was a show called numbers
that was on for a little bit,and it wasn't for kids, and it
was, you know, they had themathematician guy in there who
was solving things going well,the math says that, you know,
whatever. So that just kind ofan intrigued me, and I'm sure
that was kind of in the back ofmy mind when I wrote these,
these books. But kids love them.
I had one little girl write methis tonight, nicest note. She
(20:39):
said, I really didn't like math.
And during covid, I was at home,and my dad brought me the first
math kids book, and I read itand liked it, and then he got me
another one and another one. Andshe said, completely changed my
mind about math. And she said,Now, math is my favorite
(21:02):
subject, and it's my bestsubject. So she said, Thanks for
giving me a chance to learnabout math. And I went, great,
you you got it that that's who Iwas writing this for you.
TD Flenaugh (21:14):
Absolutely. That is so great. And, you know, you
know, shout out to, you know,parents like that. Could be such
a great writing activity too,like just writing to the author
and sharing how a piece ofliterature really helped you and
you enjoyed it. So that's Ireally like that idea, too. So
tell us where we could get yourbook.
Dave Cole (21:37):
So you can find out about on my other website, Dave
Cole books.com very clever name.
And it'll, it'll, you know, tellyou all about the books. Got a
younger series as well calledEmily and Sam. I had some
parents saying, because the mathkids is probably third to sixth
grade kind of range. And I had acouple parents, and this
(21:58):
happened over a course of acouple weeks, I was getting the
same message from multipleparents saying, my kids love
your books, but I have someyounger kids. Could you write a
younger series? And I said,Well, maybe, let's see. So I
wrote the first one. Mypublisher loved it. So there's
three books in that series,probably some more to come on
that as well. That's more forfirst to third kind of grade,
(22:19):
early chapter books. Wow. Soyeah, so sometimes you'll find
them in local bookstores.
They're hit and miss a littlebit. You can always find them on
Amazon, Barnes and Noble com,and all the big, all the big,
big places, but a lot ofindependent bookstores as well.
TD Flenaugh (22:40):
Great. I know, like before the show, you were
telling me at the beginning ofthis, this is the beginning of
the school year, and that youhave a lot of places that you
visit. Can you tell us about,you know, how someone like what,
how someone can get in contactwith you, and then what would
what you do when you go to theirschool?
Dave Cole (22:58):
Yeah, and also through the website. So gaveco
books com, it's got a wholesection on author visits. I've
probably done, I don't know, 150maybe visits Now, throughout
Missouri, Illinois, Indiana,Iowa, bit down to Florida. So it
that, to me, is is fun, andthey're very interactive
(23:21):
presentations. So kids are doingsome math with me, and we do
some stuff with the paperstrips. I do a little magic,
which always keeps some keepsthem interested. Sometimes some
fire appears. I, you know, outof my hands, and you never, you
never know what's going tohappen. So it's a lot of fun,
but I need to be veryinteractive so that the kids are
(23:44):
experiencing that. And I dosomething a little bit different
with younger kids than I do withthe with the older kids. But
yeah, you can contact me rightthrough there. And, yeah, that's
that's fine. I love, love doingthe school visits. I had one,
one teacher tell me when I wason a visit said, we have been
reading your book, and we do itas a read aloud in class and in
(24:07):
the book, I I do have somepuzzles, because I think puzzles
are a great way of teaching mathwithout them knowing they're
learning math, right? I don'teven have to tell them it's math
that they'll figure it out. Andshe said, whenever we get to a
puzzle, then we all break intogroups and we try to solve the
puzzle, and like, groups offour. And I said, that's a
(24:29):
perfect way of using the books,
TD Flenaugh (24:32):
wonderful tell us.
Because I know, you know, I'vetalked a lot about this on the
show, um, just how, you know,there's, like, a lot of kids and
people are like, don't considerthemselves to be mad people, or
they don't like math. What mightyou what have you seen people
doing that contributes to that,that maybe we could, you know,
(24:53):
tell parents or educators liketo be careful not to do that, or
kind of reframe how they're. Aredoing certain things so that we
don't continue this, you know,where people can slow it down,
at least the people i
Dave Cole (25:09):
i, in fact, I actually heard it on your
podcast. I think you made acomment one time. We would never
say, Oh yeah, I just can't readbut, but we're okay saying we
can't do math. So what I try totell parents and what I try to
tell kids? In fact, I'll tellyou when I the very first thing
I do at any school visit, as Ialways ask, how many of you like
(25:32):
math? And in first grade, everyhand will go up. Second grade,
every hand will go up. Lose afew in third grade, but fourth
and fifth grade. And I don'tknow if it's the event of
decimals and fractions or what,but probably by the time I get
to fifth grade, if I get 25%saying they like math, that's
(25:54):
high. So that troubles me. Thatworries me a little bit. So then
I do ask the follow up. I said,if you want to share with me,
tell me why. Tell me why youdon't like math. And I get two
answers, variations of those.
I'll get something like it makesmy head explode, which means,
okay, it's hard. Okay, I get it.
(26:14):
Yeah, that's a variation ofthat. Or it's boring. And
sometimes I'll get that samething, same answer, two answers
from the same kid. And math canbe boring. So what I try to do
is to show that there's mathbeyond what you're doing that is
going to be more interesting.
We'll talk about there's afamous sequence called the
(26:37):
Fibonacci sequence, and it's nothard math. It is. You start with
two ones. I love math patterns.
Start with two ones, and I addthe two ones together, I get a
two. Then I add one and twotogether to get three. So it's
just keep adding the last twonumbers, and they pick up on the
(26:57):
sequence really quick. I letthem kind of discover the
sequence, and then they're kindof shouting out numbers, and
they get lost somewhere around89 because the math gets a
little harder to do in theirhead, but, but they get that.
And I said, So why is thisamazing? Have you ever seen the
sequence before? And they alwayssay, oh no. And I said, but you
really have. And I said, if yougo out and you look at flowers,
(27:21):
every flower that's out therewill have the number of petals
will be a number in theFibonacci sequence. So there are
flowers with 144 petals, butthere aren't any flowers with
100 petals or 82 petals, butthey are some flowers that have
89 petals, and I have picturesof those, so I'll kind of show
those. And then we talk about, Idraw a picture the Fibonacci
(27:45):
sequence. So you can actuallydraw little squares that kind of
keep getting bigger and biggerand bigger. And if you connect
them all together, it makes thisreally cool spiral, and they all
recognize the spiral. And Isaid, So, where have you seen a
shape like that? Think aboutanimals, and they'll, you know,
seashells and things like that.
Then we'll talk about anelephant's trunk looks like that
(28:08):
a pig's tail, so the shape isall around us. I said, so what
if I'm collecting those shellson a beach and a big storm comes
up, hurricane, hurricane, andI'll show them this Fibonacci
spiral next door hurricane, theyhad the exact same shape and and
spiral galaxies and things likethat. And so it's amazing. I
want them to see that that mathis all around us, and you're
(28:33):
going to keep seeing math, evenif you don't like it, and, you
know, it's out there. And themath is going to get more fun,
you know. And that's what Ithat's what I really I, you
know, if I can take anythingaway, I was asked at the end, is
math more interesting than you,than you think? And most of them
will, some begrudgingly, butwill say, yeah, it's more
(28:53):
interesting than we think. Andif I can do that, then, then I
think I've, you know, I'veaccomplished kind of a little
mission that they made, givemath another shot.
TD Flenaugh (29:03):
Yeah, that's, it's good, really, to think about it.
And it's so it's, it is solimitless. And I've had several
people come on, and they have adifferent take on how to do
this. So you have, like, totallynew ideas. But yeah, so there.
So I think maybe it's on us asparents and educators to really
(29:26):
make sure that we arehighlighting and bringing to the
forefront the ways in which mathare all around us, how we could
use it, the applications for it,how to make it fun, how to
integrate it in ways that aremore engaging, but and I think
(29:46):
also embracing just that like itcan be it can be boring
sometimes, but there's all theseother layers that make it more
interesting. But when you'reinterested in it, then the
boring is like. It's boring,right? Like, right, yeah,
Dave Cole (30:03):
and you're willing to go out and learn some on your
own. Because ultimately, I thinkwhere we want kids to do is we
want them to learn on their own,because at some point we're out
of school, and we don't stoplearning. We want to keep
learning. We get to choose morewhat we what we learn, but we
always want people to learn, soI want to help give the skills
(30:27):
to be able to go out and do thelearning. So what I did in the
books is there's an appendix ineach book, each of the math gets
books that talks about the math.
You don't have to get into themath, but if kids are
interested, there's more detailson you know, what does this
really mean mathematically? Andso I think that part's fun as
(30:49):
well. There are also teacherstudy guides for all of the
books as well, or at least mostof the books they those usually
trail the books by by a littlebit. But nice.
TD Flenaugh (31:01):
That is so good. We so definitely in the show notes,
we'll have all this informationand for parents and educators to
really be able to, you know,share these resources with their
kids and really get into thebooks and the fun of math. Okay,
and so you're so experienced,right, and with the math and
(31:24):
everything. But if I'm a parent,could you give me some advice,
or my fifth grader hates math,like, what should I be doing at
home? Or what are some things Icould be doing? You know that
are really practical for me? Youknow, if I'm a parent who is not
an educator.
Dave Cole (31:43):
Yeah, I, you know, for me, and I've done this with
a lot of kids, and gotten theminterested is, is in
mathematical puzzles and andsolving. You know, when I talk
to when I talk to parents, andI'll talk to teachers, they're
saying, Well, I know math ishard, I said, But math is how we
(32:04):
kind of process things in ourbrain. So, so math is also
science, and math is also even,you know how my my son, who's
who's an attorney, he said, I amshocked how much I use math
skills in my job as as a lawyer,just the logical thinking
(32:24):
process. I need to prove this.
How do I get this, this and thisto do that? So, so those skills
are really, really important.
So, yep, maybe they will not docalculus when they when they get
older, not everybody does right,but they are going to need these
other skills, and a lot of thoseare just kind of thinking
(32:45):
skills, logic problems. Kidslike to learn how to do Sudoku
puzzles and things like that.
So, and there's all kinds ofresources that are out there.
You can Google, you know, mathgames for pick a grade and and
there'll be lots of things ormath puzzles for that. For that
age, I coach 1234, like it'sfour now math teams, and we play
(33:10):
a game called equations, whichis just a really heavy duty
thinking game, and the kidsnever will know how, how amazing
math they they are doing. AndI'll just tell you equations
real quick, because it's it's aninteresting game. We're taught
to solve a problem. We are giventhree plus four to get seven
(33:35):
right. Equations. Doeseverything backwards. You start
with the solution, and maybe thesolution is 24 Well, there are
lots of ways to get to 24there's two times 12 and there's
two times 10 plus five minus oneis and it makes kids look at
numbers differently, okay? Andit's a great strategy game, and
(33:57):
I have fifth graders that aredoing, you know, fractional
roots and and powers and things,and they don't know how hard the
math is that they're doing.
They've just found strategiesfor doing that. Another game. I
really two other games. Ireally, really like one game is
called 24 okay? And it's a it'sa card game, and it just has
(34:22):
four numbers on it, and you haveto find a way to make those four
numbers using just addition,subtraction, multiplication,
division to get to 24 using allfour numbers. Okay, great,
great, great game. Another one Ilike is a game called Set SCT,
okay? And it's just patterns,and you have to find four things
(34:45):
that are three things that arealike or different. And it
really and you can play thatwith very young kids, and they,
you will not be able to playwith them long. They will get
very good at it very quickly.
But it's. Really good. Just alogical thinking game. I love
that game, but you can make upyour own flash cards. I think
(35:07):
are, you know, no one likesflash cards but, but in math
camp, I invented the game ofDave. It's my game. I could call
it after me. So it's basicallylike playing the game of war.
You divide the cards up. Youflip over a card, and face cards
are worth 10 points. Everythingelse on nine is nine and eight
and so on. If they're the samecolor, they have to add them,
(35:31):
and it's the first one to comeup with the sum. If one's red
and one's black, you subtractthem. If they're both red, you
multiply them. So there's threedifferent operations that you
can do. What are you reallydoing? You're doing flashcards.
They love playing that gamebecause it became a competition,
and that's all they were reallydoing was was flashcards and
(35:53):
working on their on their mathfacts. So it was fun. I really
they would beg me to play thatwe'd come in in the morning.
Could we play Dave? Could weplay Dave? Sure, yeah, let's go
for it. And that's somethingthat you can do at home with
your kids, right? If they'restruggling with some stuff, you
make it a game, and they don'thave to know they're learning
TD Flenaugh (36:14):
absolutely we are so glad that you came on our
show, another math expert on ourshow with, you know, a total
different twist on how to make amath application fun,
interesting, and even runningaround and and doing it, I love
it, so we are going to make surethat all of that is in the show
(36:36):
notes. And please reach out toDave. Is there any final
anything you want to tellparents or educators, maybe
struggling out there withlearning or just may or may not,
whatever final things,
Dave Cole (36:49):
yeah, it's again, you find a way to get your kids to
to want to learn. So if theylove baseball and hate math,
have them do statistics forbaseball players. They don't
know they're doing math. They'redoing statistics for baseball
players. You know, how manygames behind are we? What's the
(37:09):
magic number? All of thoselittle baseball terms have math
behind all of them. They could,they could get into that. So
find something that they thatthey like, and find a way to
incorporate some some math inthere. Feel free to reach out. I
have I can come up with ideasfor you. So reach out to me
through the website, and I justsay, Hey, give me your
(37:32):
situation. I'll come up withsomething.
TD Flenaugh (37:34):
Love it. Alright.
Thank you so much again.
Audience for you know, listeningin or viewing the falling for
learning podcast, please dosomething today that going to
give your children thecompetitive advantage. Have a
great week. Thank you. Thanksagain for supporting the falling
(37:58):
for learning podcast. NewEpisodes go live every Saturday
at 5pm you can watch us onyoutube.com, at falling for
learning, or listen on all majorpodcast platforms such as Apple,
Google, Audible, Spotify andmuch more. For more resources,
(38:21):
visit falling in love withlearning.com we really
appreciate you. Have a wonderfulweek.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.