Pictured below are a few of my favorite Martin Gardner books that I will share with friends and students on October 21 for a Celebration of Mind:

    

Motivating ideas are easy to find in any of Martin Gardner’s books.  A Gardner’s Workout: Training the Mind and Entertaining the Spirit has an item in the back of the book about a classic mixture puzzle.

The video below contains the classic puzzle involving a mixture of two different liquids, presented by James Tanton.  The video mentions the idea/how to (also found in A Gardner’s Workout) that you can accomplish with cards to work through the process of the puzzle.

Get a deck of cards, split them into piles of reds and blacks, and see how it works!  Also, consider following @jamestanton and @wwmgt on twitter for multiple ideas related to and demonstrating the richness of mathematics!

References:

Gardner, M. (2001). A gardner’s workout: Training the mind and entertaining the spirit. Natick, MA: A K Peters.

J. Tanton, Milk and soda puzzle (video!) from Thinking Mathematics http://www.jamestanton.com/?p=991 Accessed 24 September 2013