THE GREEDY TRIANGLE and Polygons!

Back to my geometry classes....the students have moved from triangles to polygons and I read The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns to seven classes.

We started with 10 different polygon shapes cut out of construction paper (I have them with my die-cut machine in the workroom). Each student got a shape and had to glue it to a piece of computer paper, then create a drawing incorporating the polygon into the drawing. We got a LOT of houses and stop signs (even though some had hexagons and heptagons instead of octagons), but some students were very creative with their vision (see pictures below).

After reading the story we discussed what the book was trying to teach besides shapes and most of the students responded with answers like: friendship, being yourself, don't be greedy, love the way you are, etc.

Quadrilateral makes a bird beak.

Student creativity at work!

I then reminded the students that math was not my favorite subject and I always wanted to know WHY we needed to learn things like polygons. I found two video clips that showed how polygons are used in the "real world." (Note to self...ALWAYS bookmark the video you find, when you find it! I only used one, because I couldn't find the other one!)

I explained to the students that one of the videos showed how polygons are used to create the three-dimensional gaming worlds they compete in at home. When you take the coloring away, you see polygon on top of polygon building the blocks of the virtual world. It's very cool (but I can't find it!)

The second video clip showed how polygons are used to build recording studios and help with the perfect sound quality of a song. I had no idea polygons could be used that way! I accessed this video from our PowerVideo database.* I like being able to make those connections for the students when I can!

*Polygons. Distribution Access Inc. 2002
  Learn360. 31 January 2014
  http://www.powervideos.org/ShowVideo.aspx?ID=147992

Another book for Geometry Classes

My Geometry teachers love having picture books to use in their classrooms to introduce new topics, and they want me to read to their kids as much as possible. So I started the new semester with the book What's Your Angle, Pythagoras?: A Math Adventure, by Julie Ellis (Illustrated by Phyllis Hornung).

 

Obviously, we were talking about the Pythagorean Theorem, which the students mostly knew something about already, but the story helped cement the concept for them in the coming unit. What was great about the story, is it gave three "real-world" uses for the theorem; and isn't that one of the complaints that students have today? "When am I every going to use this?" I often felt that way about math in school (and other subjects as well), but this book allowed me to show them how they could use this equation to map distance, create right angles for building and also use tools correctly. It also lent some history to the math class and gave students a look at the historical fiction genre.

After we were done reading, the teachers led the students to write about what "real-life" examples they could use for the Pythagorean Theorem. One of the principals came by for a walk-through and said the students were engaged and seemed to enjoy the story; recalling what had been read and synthesizing the information into their writings and discussions.

One of the tools I used while reading this book was Google Play. I'd not used it before, but wanted an easy way to show the book to the students. I purchased the books for a few dollars (under $6, I think) and was able to project it from my iPad mini through the AirPlay/AirServer feature available. It made it so much easier to use and manipulate the book in front of the whole class.

In a couple of weeks I'll be using a picture book to introduce polygons!

Geometry and Angles

My geometry teachers came to me and wanted to try the picture books out on their classes. One of the teachers had used the math adventures of Sir Circumference by Cindy Neuschwander the year before on her own, but was looking for something simpler and faster that could be shared between teachers.

We looked at their topic schedule for the semester and came up with three ideas we wanted to use with the picture books (angles, reasoning, and triangles). Our first lesson was an introduction to angles, and I used Hamster Champs by Stuart J. Murphy.

This is a very silly, cheesy story about three hamsters that outsmart the family cat with car stunts and ramp angles. It was a quick, fun read and the students enjoyed it.

After the reading, we used a simple Angles Chart from Scholastic and had the students get up out of their seats and use pipe cleaners to find acute, obtuse and right angles within the classroom. It wasn't as easy as you might think...the obtuse angles were the most difficult to find. The entire activity took about 15-20 minutes and the students had a quick intro to the next week's lesson.