Geometry in our World - Middle School Math Project

So I have taught middle school math for many years and one of my goals is always to try to make
connections for the students.  Allow them to realize the importance of mathematics in the creation of our world as well as our current lives.  I have tried a few times to create projects around math in the everyday world and have always felt like they fell flat.  Students seemed to always struggle with the concept of math in our world.  Somehow the Fibanacci Sequence comes out and students become fixated and confused by the aspects of it.  They just could never really build the connection and learn anything. 

This year I decided to try once again, with my head held high and expectations booming to see what I could do with this topic.  I wanted the students to see the beauty of how math has shaped our lives.  I decided to change the focus from all math to just Geometry in our World.  This is a project that I actually had ongoing throughout the entire first term.    I gave them four general topics and allowed them to choose a theme for each topic.  They then had to find out what they could about the topic in that theme and give me 4 examples of their findings.

Here is the link to the criteria: Geometry in our world

Math Project - Designing your Backyard

When working on Measurement, project ideas are abundant.  There are so many things you can do with it to make it real for the students.  Here is an idea that fits right in.  This may have been one of the first math projects I ever did and the students really enjoyed it.  I basically had the kids design what they would like their backyard to look like.  There of course are certain criteria that the students had to put in but I also allowed them to add whatever they wanted into it.  You could extend this and have them try to figure out the cost, in fact I did it once but my students had a difficult time with it.  Now with more and more access to online research in the class the students can find information on cost a lot easier.

In this I had the students work on graph paper to make my marking a lot easier and I have seen other teachers have them do it on graph style chart paper which really brought the design out. Here is the criteria that I set out for them.
You can have the word document here if you don't want to copy and paste.

Flip Book - Middle School Math Project

Ok so flip, turn, slide or reflection, rotation, translation can be one of those items that gets skipped when other items take a bit longer.   It is one of those things that seems to be put on the backburner.  Well I started doing this project part way through the year to make sure it wouldn't get missed.  We start just after integers and begin learning about the Cartesian Plane and coordinate systems.  This then lends itself to the transformations that can occur on the plane.  I have had a lot of success with the flip book by have students create motion with their transformations.  I have the students work on how to rotate and translate as well as reflect.  Rotations need to start with easy 90 degrees, 180 degrees or 270 degrees.  More advances students can start trying other degrees but they usually have some difficulty with it.

Here are the sheets in one file:  Flipbook project sheets on my TPT site if you dont want to just recreate from this page.

Have the students use very simple characters or elements of nature.  Stick men running or the sun setting are just fine to start especially in the rough copy version.  Simple movements end up looking better in a flipbook.  I have had boats moving into the sunset and people on trampolines as easy examples. 

Fraction Know it All - Math Resource

One of the concepts I truly believe in is that you must continue working on important elements of the curriculum all year around.  Working on a unit in math such as fractions at the beginning of the year and then not really focusing on it again until the next year can really bring about difficulties for the students.  That instant recall after not seeing it for a long time is almost impossible for many students.  One of the things that I have tried to bring to my math class is responsibility for all math concepts at any time.  Even though we go through units with specific math themes we also try to work on all the math concepts all year as well.  The way I accomplish this is through the opening minutes of the class.  The warm-up or sponge activity when the students come through the door.  Each day has some kind of different theme.  The following is what my students get every Monday morning when they enter the class.  It is the Fraction Know-It-All and it basically goes over many of the important elements of understanding fractions, decimals and percents and how they are connected. 

Here is the downloadable copy.  Fraction Know It All

At the beginning of the year it takes a little bit of time to teach but because I know that we are going to continue this all year I don't feel the pressure to explain everything all at once.  I have the students show 3 equivalent fractions, the decimal, the percent, draw a diagram of what it should look like and place it on a number line.  I put a student's example below so that you can see the basic results.  I have them do 2 different fractions at a time.

 

 

Videos for my math class

Every now and then I come across some Youtube videos that work really well with my class.  These add to the culture and the excitment of learning for the students.  We have a lot of fun with them.  Some of my favourites are below.  I would love to add to them so any sharing here would be great.


Circles:  The best one is here, the students actually now sing this song every time that I even talk about circles.  They love it.  My neighbouring teachers may not like it as much.


This one I can't get to upload nto the page but it is worth clicking on.  I even had a former student email me because they couldn't find this video and wanted the link.  Her email was: I hate math but that song helped me remember.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbUPyUi5YtM&list=FLb3QBPNaCFvuf1dE-FddGdA

Second best and was a favourite for a long time.  The kids in my class used to actually sing this one without me even asking them.  They loved the Pi is 3.14 approximately part for some reason.


http://youtu.be/eiHWHT_8WrE 

Drawing the perfect circle: For some reason my students are just amazed by this and then want to try it.

http://youtu.be/eAhfZUZiwSE

From one of my favourite math blogs: http://mindfull.wordpress.com , she posted this animation that I have used a few times to demonstrate the area of a circle. The students can visually see why Area is 3.14 * radius squared. 

http://therese.eveilleau.pagesperso-orange.fr/pages/hist_mat/textes/mirliton.html 

and a second one

http://therese.eveilleau.pagesperso-orange.fr/pages/hist_mat/textes/mirliton_arch.html 

 

 

Investing in the Stock Market - Middle School Math Project

This year I finally went for it and jumped into the stock market.  I know nothing about the stock market and so I told my students I wanted to learn.  We made a project out of it and after consulting friends about how to start we went for the competitve option.  The students had no idea about investing or business so we started by bringing in a guest speaker who talked about what people think about when they are going to invest.  The speaker was actually just a parent of a student in the class and she gave some excellent background information.

At the time we were also learning about integers and graphing and took some time with the students who already had demonstrated that they understood those concepts and brought them to the computer lab to begin researching websites, key terms and tips on how to invest.  They basically became the investment "experts" in our class.  After the others completed their math work on integers we had all the students enter the computer lab and paired them up with the experts.  Students then began teaching students on how to invest.  It was a very good starting point.

I had all the students join onto www.howthemarketworks.com which allowed them to not have to give away personal information.  They all practiced how to buy stocks and about the rise and fall of the market. 

Through the website I started a contest for the class where they got $10,000 and could invest it however then wanted with the restrictions of the contest and my own criteria where must have bought stocks in at least 3 different companies. 

And it was on!  Students were checking there stocks constantly, at nutrition break and lunch times you could hear students talking about their investments.  We continued going to the computer lab to do more research and students were eager to see how they could make more money.  I included at $5 dollar transaction fee and the students were angry with me because they thought it unfair but I told them that we are trying to make it as real as we could.  Some students held onto investments while others became  day traders and were constantly updating their account.  It was pretty cool to watch students so eager.  Some of the students were quite funny in that they were refreshing their portfolio every couple of minutes for the update of their account. 

The students learned about graphing, net gain and loss, percent gain and loss, and how hard it is to make money on the stock market.  Some students learned that you have to spend money to make it as they had $10,000 but only spent a small portion of it and couldn't keep up with the others.  Some spent all the money on some big name companies while others threw darts.  It was very interesting but in the end the one who did the most research actually made the most by investing in companies that were trending up as well as short selling stocks too.  In a month she made over $1500 which was pretty impressive.

Here is the criteria I gave them, please post comments on how it worked for you or if you changed what I did.  I would love to know. 

If you want to just download the criteria sheets I made go here:  Market Research

Becoming an Abacist - Middle School Math Project

I start the most years with numeration and understanding the number system.  I found that they enjoy starting the year with a project and get right into it.  I thought of this one summer and shared the idea with a few teachers (strangely a friend of mine thought of the same idea and planned the same project without us sharing it).  The idea is that we build an abacus or actually we made a soroban and learned out to use it properly. 

We used some youtube videos to help understand the sorobans and the students went to work making the abacus. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px_hvzYS3_Y&feature=share&list=FLb3QBPNaCFvuf1dE-FddGdA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvsnftXXKdw&feature=share&list=FLb3QBPNaCFvuf1dE-FddGdA



We used beads and thread and different shoeboxes but many of them turned out to be too big to use well.  The successful ones were made from box tops or lids and a few students used wooden skewers instead of thread.  I will post pictures of examples soon.

My friend used a popsicle stick method and was happy with those.

In designing and creating them the students were suddenly also using some measurement as well to put it together.  It was quite fun watching how the students built there own. 

The biggest benefit of using this project was that the students started to understand what base 10 measnt because of the nature of the abacus.  We also worked on adding and subtracting with an abacus and the students began naturally understanding why we line up the columns when using these operations.

Here is the criteria sheet that I gave the students: It is also free at my  TPT link:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem solving instructions with cartoons

Every year in problem solving I begin with this sheet on how to problem solve and my general expectations.  We go over the sheet and have fun doing it.  I get the kids to interpret the cartoons and how they relate to problem solving.  They always enjoy them.  I found the comics on the internet quite a few years ago and tried to find them again but couldn't.  I wish I could give credit to the sources but at least the signature of the artists are on the comics. 

We then do a problem together so that they can see my expectations but in general I want to understand their thinking.  I ask them to let me know the strategy or strategies that they used, show the work (which sometimes means reorganizing it so that I understand it), and then give a proper answer.  Strategy, Work , Answer are my expectations and the kids don't find it too hard or onerous that they won't do it. 

We also add to the strategies list as we work through problems throughout the year but these strategies are a good starting point and allow me to demonstrate how they are used.

Middle School Math Project - Geometric Robot

I was looking for a way to build things with my kids because I had a few students who were quite skilled at it.  I don't remember if I made this one up or if I got the idea from somewhere but I know for sure that if I did borrow this idea I changed some things for the kids in my class.  The general idea is that we are sending up a robot to a different planet and need to build something with storage.  I had the students build robots by either giving them some nets or they designed it themselves.  Paper or cardboard was used by most of the students but a few also went to the school's  shop and built their ideas with wood.  They learned about different geometric solids, area and volume.  They had to draw out their plans and then try to build it.  The students really enjoyed this project and it was pretty easily adaptable for advanced learners as well as struggling learners. 

Here is the criteria sheet that I gave them:

Middle School Math resource - Problem Solving

Working in a classroom with many different levels can be quite challenging.  Finding resources that motivate all students is something that we strive for.  One of the resources that I use is the Problem of the Week from the University of Waterloo.  These have been great for my class. Each week they send out problems at different grade levels.  I print out copies of all the levels and give the students the choice of which ones they want to try.  The levels are grade based with Grade 5/6,  7/8, 9/10, and 11/12.  I have some students who work at the 5/6 while others attempt the 11/12.  The great thing for my problem solving class is that I don't have the answers for the problems and so I am able to work through some of the problems with the class.  They get to see an authentic attempt at problem solving by me and see how I go about trying to figure it out with them.  They also give their input when they see my thinking is wrong or question when something doesn't make sense.  Waterloo gives you a week to figure it out before they put out their detailed answers.  These have been great for the class as they get excited to see the answers and see if their thinking was correct and they are able to work at a level that is comfortable for them. 

Here is the link:  http://www.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/resources/potw.php 

If you have a great problem solving website , please share.

Middle School Math Project - Mystery Number

I have always tried teaching students about Number Theory near the beginning of the year so that we can all have an understanding of the vocabulary that we will all need for the rest of the year.  I put some mystery number challenges in with some of the problem solving that I do with my students and they all enjoyed them.  We started creating our own and voila a new project was born.  Students have found this project fun just because they can make a puzzle with it and challenge others.  I have also had students put these on the display board outside of the room (another teacher's idea: not mine) and they attract quite an interest from other students.  The general idea is to learn things like prime, factors, multiples, but you could challenge students to put many other concepts in.  The criteria that I give them is below. 

Middle School Math Projects - Treasure Island

This project came to me while trying to cover a few topics at the same time near the end of the year.  Angles, probablity, measurement and I fit in ratios as well.  This project has been borrowed by quite a few people and adapted in many different ways.  The idea is that the student are pirates and need to bury their treasure.  The must make a treasure map and give directions on where the treasure is buried.  There are many things you can do with it.  Here is my original criteria sheet that I handed out to students.  The possibilites of what can be done here are endless.

Math projects for Middle School - Designing a hotel

As an educator in Middle school for over a decade I have been actively creating math projects.  I also at times run out of ideas and am always looking for collaboration.  I figured this out a few years ago when on a learning team about Math and again recently when I changed jobs and now have the chance to discuss ideas with my partner.  Through the discussion new projects are created.  My idea here is to post different projects that I have created but hope that others will post there ideas as well. 

My first post is a new idea that my partner and I recently put together.  The idea revolves around students designing a Las Vegas style hotel.  See the Criteria Sheet I put together and make comments if you wish. If you use the idea, it would be great to see the results of what you did.  We have not used this idea yet but it is going to be our next project.  Feel free to change anything in the project, we are hoping to have the students build there hotels with either foam board or cardboard and then have a Vegas type day where the students have a chance to go to the hotel and play some of the games there.  We will hopefully make a miniature Vegas Strip for kids.  I will try to post some pictures when the project is done.

Please also see my update post at: http://underbutover.blogspot.ca/2013/04/designing-hotel-update-middle-school.html