Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Duck, Duck, Radian....

This is how my brain works.  For some reason, I was thinking, kids these days don't know how to play Duck, Duck, Goose.  I know this from our mission trip a couple summers ago.  Then, I jumped right to - Duck, Duck, Radians.  We could practice going around the unit circle counting off in radians and if you are wrong (either on purpose or by accident, then you get chased by that person).  I thought, great idea if I say so myself.  So, we tried it.  We have lunch during a block period and come back for 20 minutes after lunch - so this would be perfect for 2 activities:

The other part of this is my Garland Unit Circle:

We had a lot of fun making it and it looks beautiful.  However, every day I would come in and some part would be falling down.  Last year it stayed up for the whole half term.  We haven't even had heat or humidity yet and it kept coming undone.  After April vacation, I came in and the entire circle was done, so I said, forget it and took it down but I didn't want to waste my beautiful laminated pieces.  I thought it might be fun to give the pieces to the kids and have a little competition to see which team could complete it the quickest.

So, these were my two activities for 20 minutes after lunch.  One half of the class would do the unit circle.  I put the garland on the ground outside and let them go.  They had all the pieces - 3 for each spot - the coordinates, the radian measure and the degree measure and they had to organize themselves and work together to complete it.  I have two classes with two teams each.  Their times:

1 minute 52 seconds      1 minute 26 seconds   1 minutes 34 seconds and 1 minute 24 seconds!

They finished it easily.

The Duck, Duck, Radian game, not so much.  They could barely get passed pi/2.  They understood the game and had fun with it, but it would be more interesting if they knew their radians better. 

Duck, Duck Radian Game: (the ground was too yucky to sit on)

A completed unit circle
Action shot of the winning team:

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