The brilliant Elisa with her comments about Maths Projects from days gone by has made me think. I have a huge on-line resource with you guys right here at 'The Flaming Sword'. So come on. What Math projects do YOU remember as being interesting and engaging? Don't worry about ability levels because I can always modify the content if I get a killer idea!
Perhaps I should turn this into a contest? Give me great Maths ideas from your youth and I will organise a give away of some sort. Let's both get thinking on that................
7 comments:
Sorry, arizaphale, but my memory is less than stellar these days. I can barely remember things last week, much less...well decades ago. ;)
I had a middle school algebra teacher who used an interesting technique - boring his class into submission. I'm pretty sure his ultimate goal was to bore you into a state of sleep. This allowed him then to wake you up with a flick of his pointer and to castigate you to the amusement of the other students in the classroom.
That rocked.
i liked maths bingo- like a crd with instead of numbers the multiplications or divisions, so when someone called out 32 you had to cover 8x4, and then you could give out prizes if they complete?
I also liked working out what was cheaper- 30% off or 5/12th etc to work out the biggest discount on groceries... we watched a video on that in school and i remember thinking, i could save some money here... that was a good video, you could see a damn good practical point of maths- buy 2 for £1 is not good if they're only 40p each... things like that?
I also liked designing layouts for rooms eg bed, wardrobe etc on graph paper. then charting something random over a year, like hair growth, is kinda interesting for kids, to compare rates of growth?
I'm not sure, I bloody loved calculus, that was my favourite.
that reminds me, i like the 'findx' answer some kid put in an exam... for this and other funny maths answers, see http://www.scribd.com/doc/5107/They-didnt-study
In college I had a professor who came in on the first day and said, "Two thirds of you are going to fail this class, so you may as well drop it now." Of course I had to prove him wrong and make an A in his class.
The only other math memory I have was in first grade. My teacher would use goldfish crackers and m&m's as manipulatives in our lessons. It was a dream come true for a six year old food addict such as myself. :S
okay - after I stopped laughing outloud at A Free Man's comment, I remembered another math project....this was actually a first grade project....
PUMPKIN MATH: It was fun becaue it was messy and a fun diversion at Halloween time. Various measurements were taken of the pumpkins (mostly they were the small "personal pan pizza" size version - not the jumbo ones.) They weighed it, measured circumference, counted seeds and then, if I remembered correctly, used all the information gathered for a discussion of mean, median and mode. And there were lots of comparisions..."Did your pumpkin weigh more than the average pumpkin or less?" That kind of thing.
Money is always a huge motivator! I don't know about your monetary system....but with dollars and quarters - we have the ultimate fraction teaching tools. Not sure why - but the stuff based on tens seems to confuse kids - but something about seeing 4 QUARTERS and how they make ONE dollar puts it into perspective for kids! Maybe because the name of the coin is the name of the fraction of the dollar.....not sure but it WORKS.
And while I know you aren't teaching physics, I had to share this fun one with you. The Honors Physics class in high school takes a big field trip to GREAT AMERICA (a huge amusement park) every spring. The kids have packets to complete about the roller coasters, etc. They even had little instruments they take on the rides to gather data so they can calculate acceleration and all that fun stuff! Just have to make sure that the group has at least one brave soul who will go on the rides (and that was NOT my DD).
I love a good challenge and my brain will be working hard to come up with some more ideas for you!!!
Elisa
Math was the one item in the curiculum that gave me complete fits. Beyond the earliest pre-algebra, it just never connected with my brain, and still doesn't. My only skills in that are come from knowing multiplication tables by threes and sixes from watching American football.
My only likes were the probability ones -ie gambling and games of profit. That kicks the old amygdala into top gear, but leads to cocaine, alcohol, and geometry.
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