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.