Euclid Students Embark on Magical Math Tour

For approximately 45 minutes every single student in the gym remained fully captivated in an interactive and exciting program involving magic tricks, games and more which taught them all about math and its importance.

Students eagerly yelled out the answers to questions and excitedly raised their hands to volunteer as Brian Curry put on this Magical Math Tour presentation for the school Thursday, an event sponsored by the Euclid School PTA.

Curry covered just about every aspect of math from solving equations to discussing measurements, shapes and even symmetry in this interactive show while using all sorts of fun games and tricks designed to get kids excited about math. 

Students got to play along in a “Deal or No Deal” game that taught them about probability as Curry had them help choose which briefcase had the hidden dollar bill. As each case was removed the probability would change from 1 out of 5 chance to 1 out of 4 and so on.

Curry brought up three volunteers to help him with a trick that taught a lesson on measurements as he had the students continue to try different sized magic wands (one as long as 11-feet)  until a “creepy furry spider” appeared. He twisted balloons into different designs to demonstrate shapes and used some good old-fashioned swapping of the bottle and the glass to get the kids counting.

Math should be automatic, Curry taught the students, explaining that it should be as easy to them as it is to touch their nose. Once math gets more automatic the more fun it becomes, he told the students.

He shared encouragement by explaining how he needed to work extra hard on math when he was in the fifth and stuck with it so much it led him to get far ahead in high school therefore he told the students to never let someone tell them they aren’t capable of learning something.

The show ended with a “minute to win it” quiz which had the students quickly yelling out answers to the questions that popped up on the screen. He told the audience that for guessing the correct answers he would donate a copy of his mathematical magic book to the school’s library.