Magic Squares

In math class today, we put aside our work books and explored “Franklin Stations”. At one station, students did a penny heads-tails probability exercise (inspired by “a penny saved is a penny earned”). At another, they examined different denominations of dollar bills, and then created their own version of a bill with their likeness. Unfortunately, I did not have a Franklin $100.00 bill to show, so we made do with a $1.00, $5.00 and $20.00. bill.

The third station was set up to explore magic squares. We read a story called Franklin and the Magic Square, which said that Franklin invented the magic square in mathematics. This turns out to be not entirely accurate. Magic squares have actually been around thousands of years, and were probably invented in Ancient China. Franklin invented a variant of the magic square called (appropriately enough) Franklin’s squares.

In any event, it was an interesting puzzle. If you want to learn more about how to make your own magic squares, much like we did today, you can go to http://www.dr-mikes-math-games-for-kids.com/magic-square-recipe.html for a website that walks you through it, step by step.