Toothpicks and towers

Toothpicks and towers Notes

Date March

Class

Teacher
Terry Hagen

Notes
The last activity I did was the toothpick squares. The students like hands on activities and this one was good. They made it through the first part for perimeter but got stuck on the predictions on the general outcomes. When it came to writing out a rule, I had them all write out their rule and explain how they got each one. That worked well and we came up with a pattern that everyone agreed on.

Overall I thought that it went very well and I plan on trying it again next year. What I would change is to ask if any body can come up with other patterns and work from there.

Date October

Class

Teacher

Notes
Notes: I gave the students the first worksheet and had them try and answer the questions on their own because I wanted to see how many of these questions they could answer on their own. I had not done an activity like this before and so I was curious as to how well the students could answer the questions. Some students had quite a bit of trouble at first not understanding what the activity was all about. When I let them work in groups, they were able to help each other.

We then went through the activity as a class, I could see that most students were able to come up with the concrete answers, but some were still not able to see how to come up with a rule. I showed them how to make a table to see the pattern and that helped a lot. Some students found it easier to describe in words the pattern rather than to write it algebraically.

When I gave them the second activity worksheet, they were able to answer the parts of the first two questions rather quickly now that they understood how these kinds of problems are to be done. The last question was rather difficult for most students to answer and those that did found it easier to describe the pattern in words.

After I did these activities, I found the “Marcy’s Dots” activity in our packet. It is a shorter and simpler activity and one that would make a good introductory example to go through, since it seems to me the students are not very familiar with these types of activities. Next time, I plan to do the “Marcy’s Dots” activity first.

Date	March
Class
Teacher	Terry Hagen
Notes	The last activity I did was the toothpick squares. The students like hands on activities and this one was good. They made it through the first part for perimeter but got stuck on the predictions on the general outcomes. When it came to writing out a rule, I had them all write out their rule and explain how they got each one. That worked well and we came up with a pattern that everyone agreed on. Overall I thought that it went very well and I plan on trying it again next year. What I would change is to ask if any body can come up with other patterns and work from there.
Date	October
Class
Teacher
Notes	Notes: I gave the students the first worksheet and had them try and answer the questions on their own because I wanted to see how many of these questions they could answer on their own. I had not done an activity like this before and so I was curious as to how well the students could answer the questions. Some students had quite a bit of trouble at first not understanding what the activity was all about. When I let them work in groups, they were able to help each other. We then went through the activity as a class, I could see that most students were able to come up with the concrete answers, but some were still not able to see how to come up with a rule. I showed them how to make a table to see the pattern and that helped a lot. Some students found it easier to describe in words the pattern rather than to write it algebraically. When I gave them the second activity worksheet, they were able to answer the parts of the first two questions rather quickly now that they understood how these kinds of problems are to be done. The last question was rather difficult for most students to answer and those that did found it easier to describe the pattern in words. After I did these activities, I found the “Marcy’s Dots” activity in our packet. It is a shorter and simpler activity and one that would make a good introductory example to go through, since it seems to me the students are not very familiar with these types of activities. Next time, I plan to do the “Marcy’s Dots” activity first.