The Trinomial Cube

This is about my Christmas present from my husband.   It’s something I’ve had on my Amazon wish list for three years that I suppose didn’t look that interesting.  I was a math major in college, was on the math team in high school and college and am the daughter of a math teacher.   The thing I wanted was a Trinomial Cube.   It looks like this:

It’s a puzzle with lots of little blocks.   The blocks, when put together correctly, make the same pattern on each side.   But there’s more.    The puzzle is a physical representation of the mathematical formula:



The formula shows the area of the whole cube can be expressed by summing the areas of all the prisms that make up the cube.    Here are all the pieces laid out:

This may look and sound very complicated, but when I opened my present at Christmas my five-year-old son said, “hey, we have that work at school.”   I watched him take the puzzle apart and put it back together with no problem.     He doesn’t understand math at all behind it, but he does know the colored sides all touch.   He put the red pieces in so the red sides all touched and then did the same with the blue and then the yellow.    Several years from now when he’s in elementary school, the Trinomial cube will come back and he’ll learn how to express the pieces and the cube as a formula. 

It’s exciting stuff, watching children learn.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was playing a game where he and my husband were chasing each other around.   I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on until I heard my son call out, “you’re a big giant robot that fires meatballs.”   I couldn’t help but laugh.    My husband played the part, making squishy blop sounds as he shot meatballs out of his hands.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter worked very hard on a drawing for me today.   She told me it was a golf obstacle course.    Then, she affixed it to the refrigerator with a large amount of stickers.   Later she walked by it and noticed it.   She said, “mom, it’s your golf course obstacle drawing.”   I was so glad she saw it.   Or maybe she just remembered she put it there.   It’s so hard to tell these days if she’s seeing or using other input to determine things.

Fitness Update:  I ran fifteen miles today and the first time I’ve run in a month.   It was fun, aside from the first mile in which I questioned if this was a hobby I really liked.   After we got moving though the rest of the run was very enjoyable.