Partitions

Today I visited Elaine's class and introduced the kids to partitions. A partition is a way of breaking up a number into a sum of numbers. For example, we can partition 3 in three different ways:

3=3+0

3=2+1

3=1+1+1.

In order to make things fun, we partitioned groups of kids. To partition the number 3, we had a group of 3 kids stand holding hands, and the other kids rearranged those 3 into a pair and a single, or three singles. We got all the way up to partitions of 6!

See Elaine's post for pictures!