Week 31: Angle Inquiry

Sometimes the simplest things have wonder hidden within. This week, learners can play with the angles of polygons. How many degrees are in a triangle? In a quadrilateral? In a hexagon? Is there a pattern?

Here is a warm-up activity:

Draw a triangle (any triangle), and cut it out.

Next, rip the corners off:

Now, here is the fun part… put the pointy angles together. What do you get? Try it with lots of triangles and see if you always get a straight line. Rather than lecturing or telling learners that triangles have 180 degrees (or pi radians), let them discover. They can even create art ( I like to make my angles into perspective path doodles.)

Now do the same with a four sided shape. What do you notice? Is it the same for all the ones you can create?

Now do the same with 5, 6 or more sided shapes. There is a rule to be found. Try to discover it if you don’t know. I will put the rule at the bottom of this post.

I did this twice last week with virtual classrooms through the Covid-19 isolation. Students from kindergarten to middle-school ate it up. We used it as a warm up activity (10-15 minutes) prior to doing some loop-doodle math and/or other activities.

and

the

rule

is

stated

right

below:

The rule for simple polygons is that for n sides there are 180(n-2) degrees. Or you add 180 degrees every time you add a side.

Week 30: Coloring is not Just for Kindergarten

I am trying to tell my 15yr old daughter that an elective high school credit in Graph Theory would be fun next year. Of course I do this as subtly as possible – I start drawing coloring sheets for this post on my iPad and then carefully shade them in. All three of my children slowly sneak up behind me and breath in my ear.

“You know that it will never take more than four colors” I state.

“Really?” I hear my oldest daughter say with a sense of wonder in her voice. “Can I make one?” she asks reaching for my device.

My 15yr old’s Piece

She takes over the iPad. I go for a run. I clean up a bit. She is still designing, thinking, coloring. A wave of gratitude flows over me “Thank God that coloring isn’t just for kindergarten.” We are so blessed to have the abundance and time to be able to color, play, and contemplate.

She finishes her design. “It looks like the beautiful cobbles on our Oregon beaches.” I think, then say.

“That’s what I was going for.” She says. Then gets up and goes back to her school work.

This week I challenge learners to play with coloring sheets. Make your own. Share them. Color them. Contemplate them. Can you restrict the coloring to four colors? It may take some problem solving for more complex sheets.

In graph theory, there is the study of graphs that are made up of nodes (vertices) that are connected with lines (edges). Create a graph for one of your coloring sheets, where the regions are nodes and lines connect the regions that touch.

You could also create a graph with nodes and edges and then the coloring sheet to go with it.

Below are a couple examples (some blank for you, my readers, to use):

Week 29: Design a Game

This week learners can brainstorm game ideas and test them out with family and friends. Games can be prototyped with paper, clay, cardboard, maker equipment, and/or craft supplies. When I do this with classes, we often play or analyze games that we love prior to designing our own. This allows learners to incorporate aspects that work and exclude things they don’t like. Some rankings from students have been on ease of setup, how long it plays, how long it takes to learn, balance of strategy/chance, fun factor, and uniqueness.

Once learners are ready for their own game design, you can encourage them with the following prompts:

  • Does your game have a theme or story?
    • (Sometimes a theme or story can engage different sets of users.)
  • Is your game competitive or collaborative?
    • Do you want to work together or separate?
  • Is your game going to be more strategy or chance?
    • How can you add elements of strategy and/or chance?
  • What does the set-up look like for the game?
    • Does it take a long time, or is it easy?
  • How does a player take a turn?
    • What is the algorithm for turns?
  • What is the goal of the game/how do you win?
  • How many players can play without making it take to long?
  • Is there a way to change how the game plays each time?
    • How can you add variety to game play?

Items that learners may want to include in their game: pieces, board, box, instructions, dice, cards, tokens, etc.