Final Blog

This is my last entry for this semester. We were given study-guides for the test. I have to admit that I’m pretty scared. This test requires us to memorize a bunch of formulas. I could easily get some of the formulas mixed up. But nevertheless, I still have my study-guides. With practice and motivation I’ll have no problem acing the test. The professor showed us some really cool geometric origami. They were made using the methods of tessellation and formed different geometric-patterns. It’s amazing how creative children’s minds can be. They can perceive certain aspects that teachers would otherwise not have noticed.

We also had some very unusual class-room presentations. One presentation involved candies which covered the topics of geometry and building a ginger-bread house.  Every child loves to make ginger-bread houses. Although it’s a shame we never really got to make one. But at least we still got some candies. Then there was another presentation where the student brought in a pet iguana (or is it a lizard?). She covered the topics of measurements and measured the lizard’s lengths. This is an excellent teaching-method because children love it when there are animals around.

Here is another ginger-bread house activity:

• Gingerbread Houses
  • Gingerbread Geometry: challenge students to find the footprint, perimeter, surface area and volume of their proposed gingerbread houses before actual construction begins. If students are covering milk cartons, small groups could use empty cartons to find the measurements and describe the tools they used for each item. Have students use customary (in.) or metric (cm.) measurements, depending on teacher choice. Volume will be a challenge to younger students but they might fill the carton with water, rice or sand and then calculate how many cm-cubes or inch-cubes would fill the same number of cups to get an estimated volume. They could also fill the house with cm-cubes if a good supply is available. Students could leave the measurement in cups, if they are studying liquid measurements.
    • Download the Gingerbread Geometry (http://mathwire.com/seasonal/gingerbreadgeometry.pdf) worksheet for students to record measurements and how they found these measurements.
  • Decorating on a budget: Price candy decorations and allow students a certain budget to purchase decorating supplies. Allow students to plan out their house before actually constructing it.
  • Patterns: encourage students to use patterns for the roof and for walkways. Students should classify the patterns as AB, AAB, etc.
  • Tessellations: which candies tessellate the house surfaces by covering the entire surface without gaps or overlaps?