The Best Math Christmas Project Ever

    Ok, this will be a short post.....but I just have to tell you how excited I am about my classroom Christmas tree this year.

     We decided on a 3:1 ratio of green pyramids to other colored pyramids for the "decorations".

     I'm excited.  The kids are excited.   What a win-win!  And it's been pretty easy.  The only supplies I've needed are colored copies of a net for a triangular prism and tape.  One day for my warm up, I reviewed the surface area and had every kid fold up one pyramid.  And that is the only class time I've taken to do this.  The rest was kids taking these home to work on, or kids that wanted to work during our advisor/homeroom time at the end of the day.

     I will definitely do this again next year.  I think one thing I will change is that I will use the chance to more fully review surface area and make kids draw the height in on the base of the pyramid.  Then I'll have them find the surface area.  I'll probably also give them 10 minutes or so to decorate their pyramid, but you wouldn't have to do that.

Patterns.  Geometry.  Math.  Art.  Beauty.  Creativity.  Christmas Decorations.  It's perfect!

Update:  When I did this last year, I just used a basic pattern for a triangular pyramid printed two per page.  This year, I'm going to make it a bit fancier.  I have several patterns for students to use.  Some of them have clip art that kids can color.  One pattern reviews area of triangles and has students find the surface area of the pyramid.  One pattern focuses on acts of kindness and one focuses on different things about the student.  I think I will have each kid make two of these....one of their choice and then everyone will do the area of triangles one.    I'm also excited that I think I have the other 7th grade teachers on board to do this as well, so I think we will be able to take this to the "next level" and have an even bigger tree!

       It's easy to do this project with a simple triangular pyramid that you can easily find with a Google search.  Click here for a video tutorial explaining how to put the pyramids together.  If you'd like the patterns shown above, click here to see this at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Your Math Class Will Love Going To the Movies

     There are lots of great scenes from books and movies that can be used to launch math activities.  Today, I'm going to focus on a few of my favorite ones from over the years.

     Probably my favorite all time movie connection actually comes from the special features of the first Lord of the Rings movies.  There is an awesome documentary where they talk about how they use forced perspective to make Frodo look shorter than Gandalf.  The clip shows how they use the actors' distance from the cameras as well as the size of sets and props to accomplish the visual illusion.  If you click here, it will take you to a link on YouTube.  The video is 15 minutes, but the first 5 minutes are the best part.
      After watching this clip, we've had some fun projects based on this.  One year, I typed up a "script" for a short scene between Frodo and Gandalf.  Then I had students in class plan out where each person needed to stand so that they could make Gandalf look taller than Frodo in our scene.
     Other times when I've done this project, I've also had the students make easy props (such as teacups) that were normal size for Frodo, but tiny for Gandalf.  The props are identical in every other way except the size.  This way, when Gandalf picked up his tiny teacup that otherwise looked exactly like Frodo's, it helps sell the illusion that Gandalf is larger.  These activities force students to use measurements, scale, as well as reinforcing student understanding of reciprocals.
      Forced perspective is also used in the movie Elf (at the beginning when Buddy is a huge Elf at the North Pole) and some in Harry Potter, to make Hagrid look larger than life.

       Another fun (and similar) project could be based on the movie Ant-Man.  There is a fun scene in the movie where Ant-Man and YellowJacket are fighting in a briefcase.  During the course of the fight, you see giant LifeSavers, IPhones and keys flying by our tiny hero.  We are finishing our Stretching and Shrinking unit right now....so what better time to make giant versions of classroom objects!  Yesterday, I challenged my students to take an object that would fit inside a briefcase and use a scale factor to enlarge it.  (Note:  I used 10 as my scale factor, and that was REALLY big!  I would probaby recommend 5 or 6.)  When they finish, I plan to post them on a wall as a backdrop for some fun Ant-Man pictures.  Click here to get a clip of this scene.  You only really need to show from 2:00-3:00 to see what is needed for this project.
      To get a Google Slides presentation to launch this project, click the graphic below.

      Mythbusters once did an episode on zombies, and one of the tests that they did was whether it was realistic to be able to outrun a horde of zombies.  They tried different population densities and had someone see if they could run a certain distance without being "caught" by a zombie. One of our units, Comparing and Scaling, has a huge focus on unit rates.  So I used this clip to introduce the idea of population density.  We figured the population density of our classroom, gym, and cafeteria.  Then we looked at the population density of several cities.  Finally, I took my kids outside to the football field, and we tried it ourselves.....with most of my class playing zombies and the a couple trying to outrun them.  The kids LOVED it! This clip is a short version....it just the simulation for one population density.  It gives the dimensions of the field and the number of zombies.  To find the rest of the episode, here is the clip I found.  The quality is not great, but you can see it from 26:30-29:00 where it explains the other populations densities they tried.
       To get a copy of an editable lesson to go along with this video clip, click the graphic below.

Click here to find some of the other fun projects I've blogged about!

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