Top 10 Posts of 2010

2011 will be a fantastic year — or at least, a prime one! (See these posts by Gary, Pat, and James.) But as we move into the new year, it’s also a good time to look back and to look ahead: What did we accomplished last year? And what comes next?

More specifically, for bloggers:

So here is my retrospective look at the most popular blog posts of 2010, along with related blogging goals (or dreams?) for 2011.

Honorable Mention: #10 – #6

10. Prime Numbers Are like Monkeys
(1,186 views) “We noticed that if 1 was allowed to count as a prime number, the factor tree would keep branching forever and we would never get to snack time. Definitely not a good thing!”

9. Sept-Oct 2010 Math Calendars
(1,739 views) These calendars were popular last year, too. I asked my math club students to make up more problems, but I never got around to compiling the results.
2011: Renew my goal from last year, to make more math calendars. Maybe this year I’ll actually get it done…

8. The Cookie Factory Guide to Long Division
(2,087 views) A question posted on a homeschooling forum led to this step-by-step explanation.
2011: Write more “how to” articles to help parents teach the math monsters.

7. Hobbit Math: Elementary Problem Solving 5th Grade
(2,168 views) The latest in my Word Problems from Literature series.
2011: Finish the series? 5B, 6A, and 6B levels.

6. Review: Math Mammoth
(2,310 views) Kitten and I spent a full year exploring the Math Mammoth curriculum before I wrote this review. Partly procrastination, but partly because I wanted to give the program a thorough workout.
2011: Catch up on other books waiting for review? Good intentions, too little time!

Runners-Up: #5 – #2

5. Math Teachers at Play #24
(2,607 views) I only hosted the MTaP blog carnival once last year. It’s been wonderful to watch the carnival grow and to have so many math bloggers participating! If you would like a turn, the instructions are here: How To Host a Blog Carnival.
2011: I missed having the carnival on my blog, so I’ve already signed up for two months in 2011.

4. Game: Target Number (or 24)
(2,880 views) A wonderfully flexible math drill game for middle school and up. This makes a great warm-up activity for math club meetings.
2011: More games? Sounds like fun!

3. 2010 Mathematics Game
(5,898 views) I love this annual math puzzle! Have you tried your hand at this year’s edition?

2. 20 Best Math Games and Puzzles
(6,271 views) As I was putting together my Best of the Blog page, I published blog posts with my all-time-so-far favorite blog posts from each category. A companion post, Best Articles about Solving Word Problems, also did well (2,081 views), but I didn’t want to use up two places on the list.
2011: Keep the B.O.B. page up to date with recent articles.

And the Winner Is…

1. World Maths Day
(25,262 views, which brings it into my top 15 of all time.) This post was certainly the surprise of the year, since it’s merely a link to the World Maths Day site. I can’t understand why it continues to rank so high, but I guess people just don’t know how to use a search engine.
2011: Be sure to let people know when this year’s World Maths Day is open for registration.