Math Game Monday: The Number That Must Not Be Named

This challenging game stretches everyone’s working memory and offers children the delightful possibility of stumping an adult.

Many parents remember struggling to learn math. We hope to provide a better experience for our children. And one of the best ways for children to enjoy learning is through hands-on play.

So what are you waiting for? Let’s play some math!

The Number That Must Not Be Named

Math Concepts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, integers, fractions, factoring, powers and roots, prime numbers, and other number properties.

Players: two or more (a cooperative game).

Equipment: none.

Set-Up

Because all calculations are done mentally, players must agree on what types of numbers are allowed. For example, beginners may want to start with the positive whole numbers 1–100. As players gain experience, you can expand the range of possibilities.

How to Play

The first player names any number within the permissible range. Players take turns naming mathematical operations, performing each calculation mentally but never saying their answer aloud.

For example, suppose the first player names “15.” Turns may then proceed as follows, with the number changing as shown in parentheses:

• “Times two.” (30)
• “Divided by five.” (6)
• “Squared.” (36)
• “Subtract it from one hundred.” (64)
• “Square root.” (8)
• “Cube root.” (2)
• “To the fifth power.” (32)
• “Plus one.” (33)
• “Nearest prime number.” (31)
• etc.

Players try to show style by naming operations that haven’t been used, especially something particular to the current number. Since the last calculation left the number at thirty-one, you might say “plus sixty-nine.” This proves you’ve been paying attention and gives everyone’s brain a brief rest on the nice, round number 100.

If a player names a calculation that makes no sense or that takes the number outside the agreed-upon range, that player is out of the game.

At any time, one player may challenge another to name the current number. If the challenged player says the wrong number, that player drops out of the game. But if the answer is correct, then the challenger is out.

The game continues until only one player remains, or until the players decide to stop.

History

When I was a kid, our teachers used to make students keep up with a long chain of mental calculations. This game offers students a chance to fight back and see if they can stump the teacher.

I found the game on Joel David Hamkins’s blog. Your children may also enjoy his Rule-Making Game:

• jdh.hamkins.org/the-rule-making-game

 
* * *

Middle schoolers in Mississippi sprang into action when their bus driver passed out during an asthma attack. Students hit the brakes, gave her meds, and called for help—saving her life. Praised at a pep rally for their quick, calm response. #asthma #middleschool

https://wesearch.press/s/heart-stopping-video-shows-middle-schoolers-saving-their-bus-1868e862?utm_source=social&utm_medium=auto&utm_campaign=mastodon

A middle school Greek history simulation asked girls to act subservient to boys for weeks. One mom asked a simple question: was this necessary?

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/pn-teacher-girls-subservient-boys-greek-history-project/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pn-teacher-girls-subservient-boys-greek-history-project

Mirror, mirror on the wall #library #design #middleschool #makerspa… | TikTok 

... librarian gifts","unboxing mission","surprise gift reveal","librarian ... late library books, middle school library, locker round…  Read original article: Read More

https://drwebdomain.blog/2026/04/20/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-library-design-middleschool-makerspa-tiktok/

Someone criticized this teacher’s out-of-the-box lessons. Her comeback was an A+.

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/youre-a-teacher-act-like-it-ex1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=youre-a-teacher-act-like-it-ex1

Computing: Home Era

Christmas 1994. Grandma Ward’s house. A huge box with a Sears computer bundle inside showed up next to the tree early Christmas Morning. I knew it hadn’t come in the car with us so it must be for my cousins? But no, this Performa 6115CD and StyleWriter II (and Global Village 14.4 modem!) was ours, and a Core Memory was unlocked.

This is probably my densest and longest era, because I had so much much free time as a tween/teen. It is also in some ways my least documented. I still have archives of many of my files, transferred over the years from Mac to Mac. I could spend a very long time curating a few of those! Maybe a retirement project. 😂 Sadly there are basically no photos of me, well, computing. Film was still a precious commodity!

Having Macs both at home and at school (and for my dad, at work) really changed things. We now had compatible files, 3.5″ 💾, and more. For 6th grade Spanish we had to draw our “dream house” and label all the rooms; I of course used a ClarisWorks Drawing document to create blueprints for several basement levels with secret passages, a movie theater, and a submarine pen.

MacAddict

We started to get online, first with eWorld (bundled with the computer), then AOL, then a full dial-up ISP called ISD (whose three-letter domain now seems to be in escrow). I also tried out some BBSes using the ClarisWorks Communication tool, but never really got into that scene. The Internet, and more specifically the Web, arrived for me a little bit later.

Pretty soon after getting this machine I used my allowance to subscribe to MacAddict Magazine, which really helped forge me into an Apple fan. Those included discs came with a ton of cool demos, some of which drove me to buy some software, or at least wish for it. I also loved paging through the old MacWarehouse catalog. I bought basic 3D home modeling software to make fun floor plans (I was always interested in architecture) which I also used for some school projects.

MacAddict was where I found out about OpenDoc and tried using CyberDog as my web browser briefly. All those embeds may have been a dead end but it feels like they’ve kinda be realized by modern web technologies. I was really following along with all of Apple’s weird ’90s experiments back then.

Gaming

Much of my game playing in this era was built around pseudo-educational games like Civilization II and Dr. Brain and of course the Many Maxis games, but most especially SimFarm, SimTower, and of course, SimCity 2000. I still have many of my original save files and they run fine under emulation. At some point we upgraded from 8 MB to 24 MB of RAM. I remember trying to arrange direct dial games of Command & Conquer with friends, as well as a lot of Myst, among others. (Continuing a trend, after playing Riven, I was briefly really into D’ni.)

I especially got into the shareware offerings, mostly Atari clones, from Ambrosia Software. I didn’t just play these games; I also was modifying and making my own plugins for the Escape Velocity games using ResEdit (sadly most of my work was lost to a resourceforkpocalypse migrating files at some point). Definitely some Star Trek/Star Wars visual inspiration. I don’t remember what 3D tool I used, but it wasn’t Bryce 3D. (The incantation to get these files into portable form was sips --format jpeg ship.pict --out ship.jpg).

Of course this was also a time where it seemed like niche shareware was about the only thing you could play on the Mac, or you’d be waiting for some MacPlay port for years, with a few exceptions. A Windows-using classmate would jokingly ask me when Reader Rabbit 6 was coming out. In some ways it was a tough time to become a MacAddict, as Jason and Myke noted on a recent Upgrade… at least we had Marathon?

This was when I got a Zip drive as a Christmas gift from my Mac-loving uncle Mike (I remember seeing his early PowerBook and being amazed). If you’ve followed me for a while you’ve probably seen my photographed excitement? This drive enabled even faster data exchange with school (which, with faster than dialup speeds I often used to FTP download new software) and bringing larger multimedia documents back and forth. (It may have also been used to share larger applications with friends).

The Web

Sometime around 1996 I picked UltraNurd as both my Yahoo! Games profile and my AIM username. (I don’t recall for sure which one came first.) I’m sure I was kinda unsafe posting a/s/l in too many places. The name has obviously stuck, especially once I committed to it for my personal domain. It’s not entirely accurate but it still makes for an interesting conversation when I have to give someone my email. While I know I used Gopher a few times at school my first regular web use would have been Netscape Navigator. (Or maybe even Communicator?)

I remember using Fetch (wild this is still actively developed on macOS) on faster school connection to FTP some SITs and SEAs that I then brought home on a Zip disk. One of those shareware servers was the first place I encountered fanfic without realizing what it was: a short story about Barney being a harbinger of the apocalypse responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs, among other past events.

I don’t remember the exact grade, 8th maybe?, where Ms. Passoneau, the computer teacher, offered an after school mini class on HyperCard and HTML. I think we also learned some AppleScript? I made some silly games and animated presentations and learned the basics of making a web page, skills I still use today. I also remember an I think HyperCard-based game where you had to bloodily massacre Barney. The ’90s were a strange time when it came to PBS related content. We also had access to a Sony Mavica which was my first exposure to digital photography. Later in high school I got involved doing layout for the yearbook, although desktop publishing didn’t grab me the same as some other kids.

For a 10th grade science class project I set up a GeoCities site, which also had some other random nerd humor stuff. (I don’t recall my neighborhood but the archive does still exist on this domain, unlinked.) I got a huge purple hardcover book on HTML (pretty sure it was this one) and was even paid to build a website for my math teacher as well as the Minnesota Resource Recovery Association. Technically my first paid programming gig! (I made way more from babysitting.)

Upgrades

We bought my Grandma a used Performa 5300-series and set it up for her. I distinctly remember walking her through the entire Desktop Metaphor to explain where her files were. She had run a business for years, and used a DOS-based point-of-sale and inventory system, but had never used a computer personally. I grabbed a copy of PhotoShop 3 that came already installed on it before wiping it; I used that for several school projects. I think it also came with a copy of the Oregon Trail II CD-ROM which had little videos of historical characters and a very different vibe from the classic game.

By 1999 Steve Jobs had returned to Apple and the iMac had completely changed the design trends of electronics, bringing them back from the brink. I was wanting to do heavier multimedia work, and my sister and I were more frequently conflicting on needing a computer for homework, so we each chipped in from our savings for a share of a B&W G3.

I did all sorts of projects on this machine: DV editing in iMovie via FireWire, animated sequences in Bryce 3D, many school papers, and 5,772 SETI@Home compute-hours (as part of Team MacAddict!). I remember finding some QuickTime VR panoramas of the Arecibo radio telescope to use in a class presentation which super impressed everyone; I guess that kind of tech was still ahead of its time. Sadly I can’t find these archived anywhere. I should really fire up an emulator with ClarisWorks and other old applications and try to extract a few of my old projects. Game-wise, I even sometimes managed to convince my parents to let me lug the whole thing to friends houses for LAN parties of Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament. I would sometimes use GameRanger to trick some games into operating their LAN mode over dialup, including Masters of Orion II.

There was, of course, no shortage of Star Trek… including the CD-ROM release of 25th Anniversary (complete with actual actor dialogue!) and its sequel, Judgement Rites. I had the Omnipedia with its voice search which seemed like a Trek future that is still struggling to be realized with today’s models. On the G3 I also had the Quake III powered Elite Force and its Expansion Pack. You wouldn’t think a first-person shooter would fit Star Trek but somehow they made it work and gave it a pretty interesting story!

I think by this time performance wise I had switched to surfing using Internet Explorer 5. I was using Sherlock to search Lycos, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo!, and more all simultaneously. Sure it was hard to figure out who had indexed a site, but there was definitely a lot less garbage to sift through.

Some time around this here I also got on Napster to very slowly get more music even over dialup. I was using SoundJam MP with this round window Atlantis theme I found. I and friends were burning CDs for sharing and car use. My afore-mentioned Zip drive or the LAN parties were another opportunity to trade MP3s for things not covered in my expanding CD collection, especially with friends who had higher bandwidth collections. This was the main way I got trance and other electronica tracks like those from trance[]control that you wouldn’t hear on the radio and generally couldn’t find on CD, at least not at our store options.

I think in many ways the B&W G3 is my favorite Mac I’ve ever owned, never mind that many others were more powerful or flexible. An extremely elegant tower with the main board mounted on the door for easy access. It seemed like I could do anything with it. I even liked the oft-maligned hockey puck mouse that came with it, and was common on the iMacs that had started showing up at school. Not to mention it had an excellent color!

Summer Jobs

In high school I had my first job in tech: a summer internship at the Minnesota Muscle Lab, where I would use Unix for the first time (with a cheat sheet!) in their Silicon Graphics lab (I’m pretty sure these were Octanes) simulating some actin protein structures. This also gave me a taste of academia.

After graduation I worked at the now-defunct Ciprico building a web interface for one of their RAID products, extending a May Program internship. It was also my first bicycle commute, zipping along the shoulder of Highway 55 to get to the next light from our neighborhood and its office park. This involved Windows 2000 machines, and working with an older C backend developer who called the web browser “nutscrape”. The team also played Counter-Strike on the network almost every day at lunch. One of the other developers was an expert sniper who went by the username Soldat and called me “Little Nicky”. At some point I used a WAD editor to make a custom level for everyone to play. I remember the ladder code being especially tricky.

Middle school and high school were arguably my peak Mac time; I had the free time to experiment, the Web was booming, computers were changing rapidly, and Apple started coming out of its Dark Ages. For the next era, college, I would need my own Mac…

It took me the better part of a year as the new art teacher but I have finally assembled a rag-tag team of The Weird Kids who want to spend recess in the art room making wild stuff out of cardboard and listening to whatever I have on my mp3 player

Despite some initial pushback, Masayoshi Takanaka has made it into Weird Kid Art Room Recess Canon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG3MlvQ779s&list=RDkG3MlvQ779s&start_radio=1
#art #education #music #middleschool

The Canon for Sale: How Congress Handed Literature to a Homeschool Company

On March 17, 2026, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce passed H.R. 7661, a bill that would strip federal education funding from any public school whose libraries contain “sexually oriented material.” The bill’s formal title is the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” and it was introduced by Representative Mary Miller of Illinois on February 24, 2026, days after the State of the Union address. Eighteen Republican cosponsors signed on. No Democratic members supported the bill. The legislation now awaits a vote on the full House floor.

The mechanism is familiar. For nearly six years, state legislatures across the country have been passing laws that pull books from school shelves, fire librarians, and defund collections that contain material certain political actors find objectionable. Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, and Iowa have led this effort, and the American Library Association counted 821 separate censorship attempts targeting 2,452 individual titles in calendar year 2024 alone. What H.R. 7661 does is federalize that local machinery. It amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the primary pipeline for federal aid to disadvantaged students and Title I schools, and conditions that funding on compliance with a vague, sweeping content prohibition.

The word “oriented” in the bill does particular work. The sponsors chose “sexually oriented material” rather than “sexually explicit material,” and the distinction matters. “Explicit” has a legal history. It has been tested in courts, defined by statutes, and bounded by precedent. “Oriented” has no such grounding. It is a word that expands rather than constrains, and the bill exploits that expansion by including within its definition any material that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” A book that mentions the existence of a transgender character, without depicting a single sexual act, falls within the bill’s scope. Health textbooks discussing puberty could fall within it. Biographies of trans public figures could fall within it. The vagueness is the point of the legislation.

Here is where the bill does something that deserves more attention than it has received. H.R. 7661 includes a carve-out for “classic” works of art and literature. On its face, this seems like a reasonable safeguard. No one wants Michelangelo’s David removed from an art history curriculum. The bill appears to acknowledge that some works containing nudity or mature themes belong in schools. What matters is who decides what qualifies as “classic.”

The bill answers that question by hard-coding references to two specific articles published on Compass Classroom, a commercial Christian homeschool curriculum company. The articles are “Classics Every Middle Schooler Should Read” by Thomas Purifoy, Jr. and “Classics Every High Schooler Should Read” by Mary Pierson Purifoy. The Purifoys founded Compass Classroom. Their company describes its mission as teaching “a Biblical worldview and critical thinking skills.” Its history courses apply “a Christian worldview to the characters, events, theology, literature, art, and religious beliefs throughout history.” Its catalog includes a course called “Is Genesis History?” and another built around Francis Schaeffer’s reformed theological framework. The company operates as a sectarian enterprise selling a theological product to a specific religious market.

A federal bill has outsourced the definition of acceptable American literature to a company that sells Bible-based homeschool videos for $39 a month.

Consider what that means in practice. Books on the Compass Classroom lists receive protection. Everything else receives none, and could cost a school district its federal funding. The entire weight of the American literary tradition, from Toni Morrison to James Baldwin to Sandra Cisneros to Jhumpa Lahiri, is filtered through the theological preferences of a Tennessee homeschool company. The lists become the canon, and the canon becomes the law.

This is the privatization of public literary authority. It is also the sectarianization of it. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause exists precisely to prevent the federal government from privileging one religious viewpoint over others in the administration of public institutions. When Congress defines “classic literature” by reference to a company whose stated purpose is teaching a “Biblical worldview,” Congress has made a theological judgment about which stories are acceptable in American schools. That is an establishment of religion dressed in the language of child protection.

The bill’s supporters will argue that the lists are merely illustrative, that schools can still teach other works, that the carve-out protects educational freedom. The argument collapses under the weight of the funding mechanism. Schools do not have the luxury of testing whether their collections comply with a vague federal standard. Administrators will do what administrators always do when funding is threatened: they will remove anything that might trigger a challenge. The chilling effect is the policy. Fear is the mechanism by which censorship operates without needing a single book to be formally banned.

National Library Week begins on April 19, 2026. The ALA’s honorary chair this year is Mychal Threets, the librarian and author who now hosts “Reading Rainbow.” The irony requires no commentary. A country celebrating its libraries while its Congress advances legislation that would gut them is a country in active contradiction with itself.

Some legal analysts, including the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, have argued that H.R. 7661 is more campaign performance than viable legislation, a bill designed to generate headlines for its sponsors’ constituents rather than to survive judicial scrutiny. That assessment may be correct on the merits. The bill’s definition of “sexually oriented material” would face serious First Amendment challenges, and its Establishment Clause vulnerabilities are obvious. The danger of dismissing H.R. 7661 as political theater, however, is that political theater has a way of becoming law when no one is watching. State-level book bans followed the same trajectory: first a handful of performative bills in 2021, then coordinated legislative campaigns across twenty states by 2024. The precedent the bill sets matters even if the bill itself dies. It normalizes the idea that Congress can define acceptable literature by reference to a private, religious reading list.

The deeper issue here extends beyond any single bill. H.R. 7661 is one expression of a broader pattern in which public institutions are hollowed out and their functions transferred to private, ideological actors. Public schools lose funding. Private alternatives gain market share. The definitions of knowledge, history, and literature are handed to commercial entities with theological commitments that a diverse democratic public does not share. This is how democratic infrastructure erodes: disassembled piece by piece, contract by contract, carve-out by carve-out, reading list by reading list.

Authors, publishers, librarians, and citizens who care about the survival of a pluralistic literary culture need to understand what is happening in H.R. 7661. The bill reaches far past the removal of a handful of controversial titles from school libraries. It determines who gets to define what literature is, and the answer this bill provides is: a company in Tennessee that sells Bible-based curriculum to homeschooling families. If that answer becomes federal law, the consequences will be measured in decades and in the silences where stories used to be.

The ALA urges citizens to call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask their representatives to oppose H.R. 7661 and to support the Right to Read Act (H.R. 6440 / S. 3365), which would fund well-resourced and well-staffed school libraries rather than threatening them.