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!