Week 28: Apollonian Gaskets
Apollonian Gaskets are a creative way to play with circles, fractals, and mindfulness in math. Students can cut out circles and place them within circles or practice their drafting skills with a compass and ruler. The idea is to draw a large circle and then fit smaller and smaller circles inside as
Week 27: Patterns in the Paper Weaving
I love fiber arts and weaving. So, I have one more weaving post for this series, but this time it’s with paper. This activity is great for all ages and can be done with ribbon, bias tape or strips of paper. I like to use origami paper strips. The idea here is to play with […]
Week 26: Musical Math
You don’t have to be a musician to play with music and math. This week, I encourage learners to experiment with sound and patterns. Below is a list of ideas to experiment with: Create a rhythm as an individual or a class that follows a sequence and build on it, (drums can be hands on […]
Makings: Wave Pendulum
I have decided to start a new category on this blog for my “makings” – items and projects that I have designed/created for classroom use, art, fiber musings, or just because. Today I decided to create an easy to store, easy to demonstrate, easy to build wave pendulum. I’ve built these in STEM classe
Week 25: Loopy Doodle Math
Doodling and math? Yes, we can play with doodles and see what patterns emerge. Finding patterns and problem-solving is a big part of math. For this week’s hands-on-math, learners are going to draw a loopy doodle where they start and end at the same point without lifting the pencil (or pen). Try to m
Week 24: Pastel Diagrams and Plots
Sometimes math diagrams, plots, and examples can be a little dry in our books and on the board. This week learners will be taking a diagram or plot that they want to improve upon and sketch it up with pastels, paints, or other media. Color, composition, and artistic embellishments can be added while
Week 23: Fibonacci Weaving
If I am not playing with math, then I am tangled in yarn and thinking about math. This week I combined the two and wove A small fibonacci washcloth. Fiber arts are so versatile and an insanely fun way to express mathematics. In future weeks we will look at collage (wool applique), Cantor art, etc. [
Week 22: Tessellations – Paper Method
This week we will do tessellations that fit together through translation (moving without rotation). We will look at reflection and rotation in other weeks. There are a few different ways to do this, but we will use the paper method today. I always start the class by talking about what different kind
Week 16: Geometric Sketching – Hummingbird
I love to incorporate drawing skills into math education. This week I encourage learners to start seeing birds (or other animals/people) as shapes. Heads are circles, torsos are ellipses, beaks are triangles, wings are long ellipses… Sketching is a skill. A skill is something that you can master in
Week 14: Guess the rule – math game
One of my hobbies is to take completely non-math related games and modify them for classes. I don’t know what to call this game, it is probably a variation of “psychiatrist” or something, but here is how it goes: In a group of at least 4 players, ask one player to leave the room and […]
