Tag: math

Art, Creative Thinking, Math

Math Art Challenge

Terri Eichholz

Math Art Challenge caught my eye the other day when I saw a tweet from its organizer, Annie Perkins (@anniek_p), about the most recent challenge, “Mandalas,” authored by Siddhi Desai (@SiddhiDesai311).  Mandala projects used to be a student favorite in my gifted and talented classroom, and we have created them from all sorts of materials, such as the traditional sand ones and 3d printed ones.  The students also loved making digital mandalas, especially using words and kaleidoscopes of nature.  When I read Desai’s post, I was blown away by a video she included about the extraordinary mandalas that pufferfish make to attract their mates, and wish I could go back in time to show it to my students.

From the tweet from Perkins, I found that she has a page of Math Art Challenges, with 81 on there to this date!  I have always been fascinated by the intersection of math and art, so this collection is a goldmine to me.  Since I usually try to give specific resources on my posts in order not to overwhelm, I decided to recommend her challenge from Day 53, “Origami Firework From One Piece of Paper.”    This seems like an appropriate challenge for this particular holiday weekend, when viewing a real fireworks show is improbable for many due to the pandemic.

While you are visiting Annie’s site, I would also like to encourage you to go to this page, “Links to Resources on Not Just White Dude Mathematicians,” and the page for  “The Mathematician Project,” both of which promote inclusivity when it comes to math – and STEM in general.

Rangolis Stones Mandala
Image by Maitri Lens from Pixabay
3-12, Games, Math, Teaching Tools

Charty Party – All Ages Edition

Terri Eichholz

Charty Party is a game based on charts. (H/T to @MsMessineo for tweeting about this!)  Played like Apples to Apples, a judge is selected who turns over a card with a chart on it.  Only the X-Axis is labeled.  Players look at their own cards, which have potential labels for the Y-Axis, and choose one from their hand that they think the judge will find the funniest.  The player whose card is chosen by the judge collects that chart, and a new person becomes the judge.  The game ends when someone has collected 5 charts.

The creators of the original Charty Party, which was designed for ages 17+,  received a lot of requests for versions that would be appropriate for classrooms and young families.  So, after interviewing many people, including teachers, they are back with an All Ages Edition on Kickstarter.  The good news is that the game has already been funded, so production is guaranteed.  The even better news is that for every $5,000 the team raises from backers, they will donate 10 Charty Party All Ages games to a school.  As I am writing this post, they have already raised over $56,000. (Their original goal was $10,000.) The kind of hard-to-swallow news for those of us eager to play it is that delivery of the games will not begin until January, 2021.  🙁

You can get the original Charty Party right now, and add on your All Ages Cards when you receive them.  I read some of the Q&A on the product’s Amazon page, and in response to, “How many cards would I have to remove before I could allow my high school students to play this at school?” one person answered, “About half.”  Personally, I think it would be fun to have your students make their own cards to go with the charts for the time being.

If you teach math, I envy you, and definitely think you should check out this game.  For other math fun with charts and graphs, see my posts on: Slow Reveal Graphs, Dear Data, and What’s Going on in This Graph?

 

Charty Party All Ages
image from Charty Party All Ages Kickstarter
3-12, Math, Teaching Tools, Websites

Graspable Math

Terri Eichholz

I’ve been in the process of gathering recommended tools and strategies for distance learning, and bookmarked a spreadsheet started by Fawn Nguyen (@FawnPNguyen) where she is collecting “Distance Learning Best Practices for Maths.”  One of the resources entered on the sheet is Graspable Math.  Intrigued by the title, I decided to check out the website.

Graspable Math is a free website that allows students and teacher to manipulate the terms in algebraic equations easily online.  You can see how it works by going directly to the canvas, and typing in your own unsolved equation.  (Go to Insert – Math Expression.) Then, just click and drag to indicate each step you would go through as you attempt to solve it.  A neat feature of Graspable Math is that only the results of your most recent step will show on the canvas.  However, at any time you can click the handle on the right side and drag it down to show any or all of the previous steps as well.

Here is the short video that was included on Nguyen’s spreadsheet that summarizes Graspable Math:

Once you are ready to create assignments (there are specific lessons on the site you can use if you need help getting started), head over to this page for a quick tutorial on how to design lessons for your classes.

For those of you who are elementary teachers with students who may be ready to move on to algebraic thinking, Graspable Math also has a projects page that includes interactive games that scaffold the topic.  One of the games is specifically appropriate for elementary students.

Whether using an interactive whiteboard at school or teaching remotely, educators will find that Graspable Math is a nice way for students to demonstrate their understanding of algebra.

mathematics-1509559_1920
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
K-12, Math, Teaching Tools

Which One Doesn’t Belong – More Photos!

Terri Eichholz

One of my favorite math activities to do with students is called, “Which One Doesn’t Belong?” This was an idea that seems to have originated with @MaryBourassa, who created a website for this.  I described the concept and offered some links in this post from 2016. Recently, I saw a Tweet from @Simon_Gregg offering an entire album of over 200 WODB images for educators to use for stimulating math discussions.

Each picture set has 4 different images.  Project the images to your students, and ask them which one doesn’t belong – and why?  Hopefully, you will receive many different answers, and they will all be right for various reasons.  Because these are so open-ended, they can be used with different levels of complexity from number sense to geometric reasoning.  Encourage students to use mathematical vocabulary as they defend their choices, perhaps even making it a game where points are awarded for including particular words.  Challenge the students to try to find a reason for each one of the four to be excluded from the group, not just the first one they notice. The “See, Think, Wonder” Thinking Routine would go very well with this activity. (For more on Project Zero Thinking Routines, see this post.)  A formative or summative assessment option would be to ask students to create their own WODB challenges.

WODB is one of the 15 Math Sites That Won’t Make You Fall Asleep that I’ve listed on this post. I highly recommend checking out those links if you feel like you want to add a bit more zip to your math lessons – or just enjoy doing unusual math puzzles.  (I’m addicted to the SolveMe Mobiles!)

wodb numbersearch 1
Which One Doesn’t Belong? Image by Simon Gregg (@Simon_Gregg), from this WODB album
3-12, Books, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Depth and Complexity, Math

Dear Data

Terri Eichholz

This is another example of one of the great internet wormholes that I fall into when I read Twitter.  I was fascinated by a Tweet from Nick Sousanis (@nsousanis), which led me to an amazing book so I could interpret his Tweet, which led me back to the work of his students and a bazillion ways remote learners around the world could have fun with his assignment or other permutations of it.

Let’s start with the book.  Dear Data began as a pen pal project between two information designers on different continents.  As they explain on their website, “Each week, and for a year, we collected and measured a particular type of data about our lives, used this data to make a drawing on a postcard-sized sheet of paper, and then dropped the postcard in an English ‘postbox’ (Stefanie) or an American ‘mailbox’ (Giorgia)!”

Each postcard consists of their data and the explanation of its depiction.  The women chose all sorts of topics to record, such as a week of laughter or a week of complaints.  Though they would be collecting data for the same topic during that particular week, their pictograms would be dramatically different.

They learned a lot from this year-long project, which resulted in a book, a postcard kit, and a journal.  As Giorgia and Stefanie explain in this video, “We learned to pay attention, to live in the present much more, to be more aware of our surroundings, and empower behaviors with new lenses.

So, back to Nick Sousanis, who Tweeted that his visual communications students had come up with their own “Dear Data” projects, and gave examples of some of the results in his Tweet.  I asked Nick if I could share these on this blog and he graciously agreed. (You can click on each picture to enlarge.)

Credit: Student of @nsousanis April, 2020
Credit: Student of @nsousanis April, 2020
Credit: Student of @nsousanis April, 2020
Credit: Student of @nsousanis April, 2020

I see all kinds of potential for this with students.  For example, one of the Depth and Complexity icons is “Trends,” and it would be interesting to ask students to analyze one of these postcards, and determine what trends they see.  Using, “See, Think, Wonder” would be a great start. In addition, as Nick found with his class, assigning students to develop their own data sets can invite self-reflection and creativity.

During these unique times, when data has become a fixation for much of the world, students can also examine its importance and reliability.  As the women who completed this ambitious project say in their video, “Finally we both realize that data is the beginning of the story, not the end, and should be seen as a starting point for questioning and understanding the world around us instead of seeing it as the definitive answer to all of our questions.”

(For some other fun ideas for looking at data, check out my posts on Slow Reveal Graphs and What’s Going On in This Graph?)

K-12, Math

Clear the Board

Terri Eichholz

Are you looking for a fun math game to play with your kids or students at home?  “Clear the Board” might be just the ticket.  Mark Esch (@mtesch) recently tweeted out the link to his humorous video that explains how to play “Clear the Board.” It is surprisingly simple with few materials needed – and lots of fun potential.

Teachers who are currently trying to get your students engaged in math remotely could try this in several ways: during a synchronous class meeting, assigned with the video to play at home and directions for demonstrating what they’ve achieved with their own combination of numbers, or something like the fun idea below from Mrs. Bogar:

“Clear the Board” is one of those activities that is easy to differentiate, as Mark Esch explains in “Clear the Board Part 2,” offering extensions to keep students challenged. (Can you figure out which famous SNL skit he and his partner are parodying in this one?)

Mark also tweeted some other suggestions:

For an activity that is similar to this, check out “Bowl-a-Fact” from YouCubed.

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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay