Here is the video of our Estimation Station:
Monday, May 11, 2015
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Estimation Station - The Details
We have been using Estimation180.com every day for the entire school year. We are getting good at it. We wanted to see how the rest of the school might be.
We planned it for about a week and a half of math classes - not all period, we did lots of math as well. Our agenda one day looked like this:
Each day we prepared a little more:
Day 1: The 3 ideas - brainstorm the stations and the necessary materials
Day 2: Meet with our film and TV teacher to discuss our plan for videotaping (Thanks Mr. Haas!)
Day 3: Field trip down two floors to the science room to borrow goggles and aprons (Thanks Mr. King!)
Day 4: Make the signs and count the Skittles (Thanks to cafeteria ladies for giving us non-latex gloves!)
Day 5: Pour the soda (this was the plan but we didn't have enough cups so we had to wait until the day of.
The day before the actual Estimation Station project, I reminded the students to be in school. It is a small class, only 10 kids, 8 come regularly but attendance is an issue. One student said she had a field trip, one had an interview and then realized that was on a different day. Another said he didn't really want to do it, but later changed his mind. For a group who seemed excited for it, they were ready to bail on me. I reminded them of all our time planning it and told them the money I had put into it. They didn't realize the behind the scenes stuff. They asked "How much did it cost?":
How much do you think the teacher spent?
3 bags of Skittles ($7.50 but only used 2 bags)
1 jar for Skittles ($1.00)
2 yellow tableclothes ($2.00)
2 Two Liters of Coke ($3.00)
Pack of 50 plastic cups ($2.50)
1 Watermelon ($7.99)
2 - 350 pack of rubberbands ($15.00) This I had to research, watched some videos, learned the different sizes - ordered 3 inch Size 64 rubberbands from Amazon.
Grand Total: $38.99
Other materials:
Table, bowl for the watermelon (next time, bucket would be better, we ended up putting bowl on a chair, little tippy), pens, paper to write guesses on, goggles, aprons, bags to hold guesses, funnel to pour soda back into bottle, mini white boards to hold tablecloth down and provide surface to write guesses on.
Process for Watermelon:
2 kids put on 75 then took a break
2 new kids started adding bands until it broke
Surprisingly, no rubber bands actually broke on them
The actual explosion happened in a blink of an eye.
It was so exciting and cool to watch.
A big ball of rubberbands ended up about 8 feet away.
Coming Soon....The video.....Stay Tuned.
All answers will be announced in the video.
We planned it for about a week and a half of math classes - not all period, we did lots of math as well. Our agenda one day looked like this:
- Estimation180 Check these out here.
- Solve Me Puzzles (3) Check them out here.
- Which One Doesn't Belong? Why? (2) Check it out here.
- Visual Patterns (1) And, these can be found here.
- Make signs for our 3 stations
- Make advertisement signs and hang them around the school
- Count the yellow and purple skittles
- Factor when A is not 1
Each day we prepared a little more:
Day 1: The 3 ideas - brainstorm the stations and the necessary materials
Day 2: Meet with our film and TV teacher to discuss our plan for videotaping (Thanks Mr. Haas!)
Day 3: Field trip down two floors to the science room to borrow goggles and aprons (Thanks Mr. King!)
Day 4: Make the signs and count the Skittles (Thanks to cafeteria ladies for giving us non-latex gloves!)
Day 5: Pour the soda (this was the plan but we didn't have enough cups so we had to wait until the day of.
The day before the actual Estimation Station project, I reminded the students to be in school. It is a small class, only 10 kids, 8 come regularly but attendance is an issue. One student said she had a field trip, one had an interview and then realized that was on a different day. Another said he didn't really want to do it, but later changed his mind. For a group who seemed excited for it, they were ready to bail on me. I reminded them of all our time planning it and told them the money I had put into it. They didn't realize the behind the scenes stuff. They asked "How much did it cost?":
How much do you think the teacher spent?
3 bags of Skittles ($7.50 but only used 2 bags)
1 jar for Skittles ($1.00)
2 yellow tableclothes ($2.00)
2 Two Liters of Coke ($3.00)
Pack of 50 plastic cups ($2.50)
1 Watermelon ($7.99)
2 - 350 pack of rubberbands ($15.00) This I had to research, watched some videos, learned the different sizes - ordered 3 inch Size 64 rubberbands from Amazon.
Grand Total: $38.99
Other materials:
Table, bowl for the watermelon (next time, bucket would be better, we ended up putting bowl on a chair, little tippy), pens, paper to write guesses on, goggles, aprons, bags to hold guesses, funnel to pour soda back into bottle, mini white boards to hold tablecloth down and provide surface to write guesses on.
Process for Watermelon:
2 kids put on 75 then took a break
2 new kids started adding bands until it broke
Surprisingly, no rubber bands actually broke on them
The actual explosion happened in a blink of an eye.
It was so exciting and cool to watch.
A big ball of rubberbands ended up about 8 feet away.
Coming Soon....The video.....Stay Tuned.
All answers will be announced in the video.
Estimation Station 3 - How many rubberbands will it take to make the watermelon explode?
"It won't work."
"How many rubberbands are in the bowl?" (Answer: 700)
"Can I touch the rubberbands?" (Yes) "Oh, they are strong."
"Do you know the answer?" (No)
"Are you going to do it?" (Yes at 3rd lunch at 11:45)
"I got it. I know I am right."
How many do you think?
"How many rubberbands are in the bowl?" (Answer: 700)
"Can I touch the rubberbands?" (Yes) "Oh, they are strong."
"Do you know the answer?" (No)
"Are you going to do it?" (Yes at 3rd lunch at 11:45)
"I got it. I know I am right."
How many do you think?
Estimation Station 2 - How many cups filled just to that level will it take to empty the 2L of Coke?
Lots of discussion at this station. People looked at the bag of cups for the 16 fluid oz size. They asked if we poured out the one cup from this 2 Liter. Yes, we did. We filled it to the first indent on the plastic cup. They would use their fingers to measure how much was missing on the Coke bottle to the plastic cup.
How many cups do you think?
How many cups do you think?
Estimation Station 1 - How Many Lemon and Grape Skittles?
How many Lemon and Grape Skittles in the jar?
Some people didn't read the question and realized after "Oh, I guessed how many total skittles." Details!
Some people asked clarifying questions "So, you mean yellow and purple combined for one number?" Yes
They picked the jar up. They counted. They tried volume, something like 18x10x10. That seemed too big.
How many do you estimate?
Some people didn't read the question and realized after "Oh, I guessed how many total skittles." Details!
Some people asked clarifying questions "So, you mean yellow and purple combined for one number?" Yes
They picked the jar up. They counted. They tried volume, something like 18x10x10. That seemed too big.
How many do you estimate?
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Conics Projects
Phew, I finally graded all my conics projects. I told myself I couldn't take pictures of them or blog about them (the fun part) until they were graded. I finished that yesterday, so now I can blog about them. They were great! Last year was the first time I taught conics and I use @boblochel's project idea and made it mine here: Conics Project
Last year I made a slideshow of the conic projects and posted it here.
This year, I tried a collage. I love the variety. This happened naturally, just a few repeats. One student was working on Iron Man and had his head finished. He asked if he had to do the whole body. I said no. (I don't give them a set number of equations they must use). He continued and did the whole body - so he had 277 equations! They also have to find 2 intersection points - one of a conic/line and one of a conic/conic. I don't teach the conic/conic system, they teach themselves.
Nice job students!
Last year I made a slideshow of the conic projects and posted it here.
This year, I tried a collage. I love the variety. This happened naturally, just a few repeats. One student was working on Iron Man and had his head finished. He asked if he had to do the whole body. I said no. (I don't give them a set number of equations they must use). He continued and did the whole body - so he had 277 equations! They also have to find 2 intersection points - one of a conic/line and one of a conic/conic. I don't teach the conic/conic system, they teach themselves.
Nice job students!
Chalk Quads
Another outside after lunch activity. I used to NEVER go outside. I was the teacher who said, "Don't ask to go outside; the answer will always be no." Why? I don't know. It was easier. It was easier to say no and keep them contained in the classroom, but after our New England winter we are all ready for some nice weather.
I bought a bunch of chalk about 2 years ago and it has been in my closet, unopened. This morning I woke up with the idea to just graph some quadratics. We have finished the unit in Algebra I. We are onto graphing rationals but could use some spiral review of quadratics for our final exam. I gave them two quadratic equations - both in standard form. Worksheet here. They could work in groups of 2 or 3. They had to write the equation and graph 5 points, including vertex, x-intercepts and y-intercepts.
Most started right to work with drawing the coordinate plane. A lot of them factored first and I did make them all factorable, I just thought that was interesting. In our unit, we usually found the vertex first with -b/2a. So, they factored, found the vertex and graphed. Some of them did a table of values, plugged in some x's and found the y's. Interesting because that is what we are doing now for rational function graphing but we didn't really do it with quadratics. And, one group, uh oh, started by drawing an asymptote - oops - mixed up our current rationals. Quadratics don't have asymptotes. I think they will remember that! I hope.
It was a beautiful day for it. 2 graphs was just the right about and fun for all. Some pictures:
I bought a bunch of chalk about 2 years ago and it has been in my closet, unopened. This morning I woke up with the idea to just graph some quadratics. We have finished the unit in Algebra I. We are onto graphing rationals but could use some spiral review of quadratics for our final exam. I gave them two quadratic equations - both in standard form. Worksheet here. They could work in groups of 2 or 3. They had to write the equation and graph 5 points, including vertex, x-intercepts and y-intercepts.
Most started right to work with drawing the coordinate plane. A lot of them factored first and I did make them all factorable, I just thought that was interesting. In our unit, we usually found the vertex first with -b/2a. So, they factored, found the vertex and graphed. Some of them did a table of values, plugged in some x's and found the y's. Interesting because that is what we are doing now for rational function graphing but we didn't really do it with quadratics. And, one group, uh oh, started by drawing an asymptote - oops - mixed up our current rationals. Quadratics don't have asymptotes. I think they will remember that! I hope.
It was a beautiful day for it. 2 graphs was just the right about and fun for all. Some pictures:
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