Categories
surface area tasks whiteboards

Double House Task

Surface area is intuitive. Intuition is a natural hook into curiosity. When you think something might (or should) be the case, it begs the question, why? It just seems as though textbooks haven’t gotten wind of that.

Perusing the surface area chapter of the assigned textbook for my Grade 9 math class offers a steady diet of colourful geometric solids all mashed together (at convenient right angles) in various arrangements. Without fail, the questions ask the same thing:

Find the surface area of…

Categories
fractions routine visual

FractionTalks.com

I have been thinking about extending the Fraction Talk love ever since I wrote this initial post in June 2015. 

I have used them with my grade nine classes as the starter during units on rational numbers. I have taken the larger questions (such as “What possible fractions can be shaded using this diagram?”) as the prompt for entire lessons of student activity. I have used them to create great conversations with grade 7 and 8 students at our school’s annual math fair. 

Categories
inequalities linear functions systems of equations tasks

Candies, Pennies, and Inequalities

I want students to solve systems out of necessity.

I want them to feel the interconnectedness of the two (or three) equations. In the past, I’ve asked small groups to build a functional 4×4 magic square. Soon they realize that changing a single number has multiple effects; this is the nature of the system. Unfortunately, abstracting the connections results in more than two variables. This year, I wanted to create the same feeling with only two variables. (The familiar x & y).

Enter: Alex Overwijk.