6th Grade TBS Math Blog: 2011

Yesterday students shared their completed Park Projects, including their scale drawing, math analysis of 9 sections in their park, a written reflection and extensions (ranging from analyzing the fraction and percentage devoted to different sections, enlarging a section of their park, and creating a 3-dimensional model online, just to name a few).

In addition to the math skills practiced through out the projects, this project also provided an opportunity to develop executive functioning skills, as students planned and set goals daily and tracked their progress and what they still needed to complete daily using the project guidelines sheet.

Students worked for a week and a half on their Park Project and were eager to share their projects with one another and give each other feedback. Check them out!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Design-A-Park Project

After returning from Spring Break, we have jumped into our culminating geometry project in which students put on their architect hats and design their ideal TBS park.

Monday we analyzed features of the TBS campus, measuring different geometric shapes, ranging from the Solar System to planters and everything in between to develop a realistic sense of scale that students would need in designing their park.

The Design-A-Park has 3 required components and optional extensions for students who are ready to take their projects to the next level.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Skeleton Tower Projects On Display at Math Night!

Over the past several weeks we have begun our investigation of geometric relationships. From designing the most economical (and fun) bumper car plan, to comparing different emergency shelters, students found that although area and perimeter affect one another, having the same area (or perimeter) does not mean the shapes have to have the same perimeter (or area). Rectangles that are the most stretched out where found to have the highest perimeter to area ratio, while rectangles that were most square had the highest area to perimeter ratio.

Students were then introduced to the Skeleton Tower. Working in pairs, they investigated the relationships presented in the image of the 6 block high, shown below, and working together to generalize patterns to determine how many blocks would be needed to build Skeleton Towers of different heights.

Initially, most students began by building towers using cubes, to understand the relationships between the different segments of the tower. Using the building blocks to strengthen their reasoning, students found they could determine the heights of different towers without using blocks, through several different approaches to the problem. This student provided an introduction to thinking algebraicly, as several students were able to develop algebraic formulas to describe the relationship between the tower height and the number of blocks in the tower.

We hope to see as many of you as possible this evening at Math Night (6-7:30)! Skeleton Tower posters will be on display in the Depot, which is a wonderful opportunity to see how students make their thinking visible in math. We will also have math games stations we have played over the year up in Wildcat, for students to play with their families. Come by and check out how fun (and challenging) 6th grade math is!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Expressing Data in Percent Form Classwork and Homework

Welcome back Wildcats!

I hope everyone had a restful and enjoyable break and is feeling recharged to make 2011 a great year!

As we move ahead, we are going to continue to explore new uses for fractions, decimals and percents in the world around us.

Below is the link to download the classwork and homework from todays class, in case you missed it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10516607/6Math/CW_Expressing_Data_in_Percent_Form.docx