GLOBAL MATH PROJECT

Join James & 5 million students!

Join James & 5 million students, teachers & friends in a fun, project based learning experience,
adding, subtracting and grouping positive and negative numbers.

See mathematics like you've never seen it before and take part in a global math conversation with your students.

We're proud to partner with James Tanton in bringing to life a series of four wonderfully delightful learning Challenges based on the Piles & Holes puzzles, a sequel to the famous Exploding Dots. The Piles & Holes Challenges are aligned to middle school standards.

Part 1:

Digging

What happens when you combine sand piles with other sand piles. Piles with holes? Holes with holes? In this challenge we'll find out!

BEGINNER

Part 2:

It's Raining Opposites

You discovered how to add piles in the first piles and holes Challenge. Now, let’s see what else we can learn about piles and holes!

INTERMEDIATE

Part 3:

Collecting & Sorting

What happens when you group collections of piles and holes together? Find out how to use parentheses to communicate with piles and holes!

INTERMEDIATE

Part 4:

Evaluating

Now that you've learned all about piles and holes, let's practice simplifying groups of piles and holes in different ways!

ADVANCED

Piles & Holes is part of the free Starter Bundle of Challenges at Mindsets Learning.

These are a few of them.

Wilson Tsang

CABRILLO MIDDLE SCHOOL, CA

Dr. Wilson Tsang is a math educator for the Silicon Valley Education Foundation's STEM Leadership Institute at Cabrillo Middle School. He loves conducting the Piles & Holes Challenges with his students. Wilson & James Tanton had the opportunity to meet up in early 2018 to discuss Piles & Holes, the joys of math and life as a classroom math teacher.

Caitlin MacDonald

ROCKY HILL SCHOOL, RI

Cailtlin MacDonald is a middle school math teacher at Rocky Hill School, Rhode Island. She and the younger students at the school (grade 4 and up) applied their knowledge of the number system through the Piles & Holes sequence of Challenges.

Christina Wong

JOSE HERNANDEZ MIDDLE SCHOOL, CA

Christina Wong, a math teacher at Jose Hernandez Middle School in San Jose conducted the Piles & Holes Challenges with her students.

Jonathan Auditore

GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL, VIC

Jonathan Auditore is a primary school teacher at Geelong Grammar School in Melbourne, Australia. He and his students had a wonderful time brushing up on their math basics using the Piles & Holes Challenges.