Category: math

May the 4th be with You: Symmetrical Starships

Today was May 4th… No, it was May THE Fourth! As in, “May the fourth be with you…” This meant the Polite Pirates (my students) simply had to do some Starwars-themed activities.

In preparation for a fun puzzle project, I taught the Polite Pirates about symmetry. I told them that they would be drawing spaceships. They were very excited.

“There is a reason the wings of an airplane are symmetrical,” I began. “Have you ever seen this trick?” I asked my class, taking a piece of paper and placing it just below my mouth. 

As I blew hard right over the top of the paper, the entire paper flew up and fluttered under my breath. “Oooohs” hummed across the room. 

I drew a picture of the paper on the board and explained, “When air travels quickly across the top of the paper, you create a vacuum (Physics Force, 2023). The fast moving air pulls the air that is resting in front of the paper up to join it. With no air in front of the paper, it gets sucked up into that empty space. 

Without any good pics of my teaching from earlier, I reintroduced the lesson right before dismissal to snap this photo of amazement.

“Your household vacuum is a machine that creates a vacuum in order to suck up dirt and dust,” I tell my students. “A motor spins a fan that pushes air out of the machine. When the machine is empty of air, that is when it is truly a vacuum.” Mouths make Os of understanding. 

I drew a crude picture of an airplane wing. “When air flows under the wing, it is going straight. That part is flat.” I draw arrows of air moving straight. “The front of the wing curves up and back. Air has to bend and is angled up when it travels over the wing. This causes the air that is resting above the wing to travel up also, creating a vacuum, or low pressure. As the air goes up, the wing goes up (Shaw, 2021).”

I picked the piece of paper back up, and once again demonstrated air pressure pulling the paper up. Of course, they all wanted to give this a try! After a minute or two of varying successes, I drew an entire airplane on the board.

This Polite Pirate planned out his space craft on paper before arranging polygons on paper.

“If one wing were smaller than the other, the plane would raise unevenly,” I explained. “The aircraft would start spinning. It is important for the wings to be symmetrical, so that the airplane remains balanced.” 

[All of this explaining took longer than I had planned, but it was worth it. The students were really into the science of “lift,” and it lended extra importance to the idea of symmetry.]

After attracting the Polite Pirates attention once again, I explained, “You are going to engineer your own starship space cruiser,” I whispered in a serious, hushed voice. “The main quality that your creation must have is symmetry. Whatever you design on one side must exist on the opposite side of your ship.”

Tracing the shapes with pencil proved tricky.

Each student received one large piece of paper. Students could work in pairs if they liked. Bowls full of plastic polygons were placed in the middle of groups of desks. The Polite Pirates took several polygons each and began assembling space ships. 

I had told them and wrote on the board; At least 8 polygons per ship, and at least 3 different shapes must be used. 

Students were to hold down the plastic shapes with one hand, and carefully trace an outline of the perimeter with pencil. Then they removed all of the polygons and went over the pencil with a marker. 

“You will trade your picture with a partner and try to recreate each others’ space ships, arranging the colorful plastic polygons on the papers,” I explained. 

Students took photos of their creations, so that they had answers to their puzzles.

Creativity swept the classroom! Colorful space cruisers covered desks and flowed across the floor. 

This Polite “Padawan” Pirate even drew an insert to show the movement of her spaceship.

A pair of students asked me if their shape was symmetrical when they had to add a blue triangle to a row of parallelograms in order to make a long thin trapezoid. I told them to ignore the color. “Can you cut it in half and fold the one side on top of the other hiding it completely?” When they saw that they could, they realized the symmetry of the shape. 

The one thing that I’d do differently is limit the number of shapes. While my students had a blast using tons of polygons to make gigantic space ships, the answers to puzzles were too open-ended. A student could use a hundred combinations of shapes to fill a large empty space. The better puzzles were the ones that had a set answer.

It would have been better for space ships to have only a few right answers. Then the refilling of the perimeter with colorful polygons would require more concrete problem-solving.

All in all, this ended up being a memorable, fun learning experience. The Force was very strong with all of the Polite Pirates today.

Sources:

Physics Force. University of Minnesota . (2023). Retrieved May 4, 2023, from https://physicsforce.umn.edu/content/paper-lift-0

Shaw, R. J. (Ed.). (2021). Dynamics of Flight: Kids Page. NASA. Retrieved May 4, 2023, from https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/UEET/StudentSite/dynamicsofflight.html#:~:text=Airplane%20wings%20are%20shaped%20to,wing%20up%20into%20the%20air.

Beyond the Crib… Playing the Game of Cribbage

At the beginning of each school year I introduce a few fun games that encourage number sense and problem solving. Dominoes are great for mental math, recognizing patterns, and teaching multiples of five (Playification). Another favorite is Cribbage (First “How-To” on Cribbage).

Polite Pirates problem-solve in pairs

Cribbage is a card game that has two parts. I’ve written about the first part, the one that requires players to analyze their hands and decide which cards to keep and which to place into a crib.

During Math Centers, I have students work in teams of two or three to figure out which four cards of a six-card hand will generate the most points. Every student is very attentive, because if a team misses any combinations that provide points, and a student from another team can articulate the potential point-producing combination, this other student gets to claim the points, virtually stealing points from one another. They love that!

The “Starter” is placed face up on top of the deck and shared by everyone.

After a little practice with this, I explain cutting the deck to provide a “Starter” card. This card gets placed face up on top of the reassembled deck and is also used for making point-producing combinations at the end of each round. The Starter is shared by every team and the crib. Now, when students decide which cards to “lay away” for the crib, they should keep in mind the idea of collecting those points later, if the crib is theirs, or potentially providing points for opponents. Students practice mental math and problem solving for a few more Math Centers.

Once my students are well-versed in how to choose the best cards to keep, it is time to learn how to actually “Play” the game. There are loads of rules to learn and remember, but what makes it fun is that nearly everything you do gets you points! When teaching the Play, be sure to peg points. The kids get super excited with each and every point.

Polite Pirates help one another count points. The holes are marked in increments of five, so math can be used even while pegging your points!

The first thing I show students is how to hold their Hand. This is new to some nine-year-olds. They have to hold the cards they’ve kept because we place one down on the table or floor at a time, and you don’t want to get them mixed up.

Something unique to cribbage is that players (teams) will recollect their cards in order to calculate the points their hand is worth when Play is over. For this reason, have students place the cards that they are playing right in front of them; separate from other players/teams. 

Next, I explain that, during Play, we add up a running tally of “Pips.” Pips are the symbols on the playing cards. A “Five of Hearts” has five pips or hearts on it. Each face card (Jack, Queen, and King) are worth ten pips in cribbage. An Ace is valued at only one pip in this game. It is very useful; Hang on to those! (Here is a very interesting blog explaining pips and the symbolism of cards.) As students place one of their cards face up on the table or floor, they don’t say the number on the card. They announce the new sum of all of the face up cards. So, if a King had already been played, and that player (team) voiced “Ten,” and then I play a Two, I will say “Twelve” out loud. If the next player (team) places a Three face up, they will say “Fifteen” out loud, keeping a running tab on the growing tally of pips. 

The player or team that plays the Fifteen is rewarded Two Points on the cribbage board. You get points during Play whenever you form a combination of Fifteen, a pair, three or four of a kind, and/or a run. These point-producing combinations are similar to what students were looking for when deciding which cards to place in the crib and which to keep. But now, students are forming them with the help of their opponents’ cards. 

Let’s say two Queens have been played. The player who placed the second Queen on the table or floor will be rewarded two points. If a third Queen gets played, the person (team) that played it will get six points, because it forms three pairs. 

Similarly, when a run of three or more cards in consecutive ascending order are played in a row, the player (team) gets the number of points that represents the number of cards. In other words, if a Ten, then a Jack, and lastly a Queen were played in a row, the person (team) that played the Queen would get three points. 

During “Play” the pips can never exceed 31. This is the magic number of cribbage play. As players are placing cards face up and voicing the running sum of pips, they are mindful of what cards they have left to play. The closest to 31, without going over, gets a point. If you can play a card to make the Play value exactly 31 pips, you get two points. As the Play gets close to 31, if a player (team) does not have any card to play that would keep the play under 31, they say “Go.” This is when the other team gets a point. That team must play any cards that they can, keeping the tally under 31. They can collect points from pairs, runs, and even score two points for making exactly 31. 

At this point, all of the cards that have been played get turned over (facedown), so that they don’t confuse the players during the next Play. The player (team) who said “Go” during the last play starts off the new play. 

Once all of the cards have been played, and a point was awarded to the player (team) who plays the “Last Card,” it is time for each player (team) to gather up all four of their cards and get points for their individual hands. (Here is a website to reference for points.) 

This we do one team at a time. The dealer goes last. The crib is counted separately, and that is the very last thing to be tallied. It’s important to count in this order, because whoever reaches the end of the cribbage board first, regardless of how many points are in a hand, wins. In this way, you may not want to be the dealer if a tight game is nearing the end! 

I hope this blog is helpful for learning how to teach cribbage to students. One of the many benefits of  learning this game is the cross-generational play it opens up. It was one of the first games that I was able to play with the “grownups” during holiday celebrations and vacations. My dad told me about a league he played at his Senior Center in Massachusetts. One thing that he complained about was how fast those games were. It was too much pressure.

That being said, you might want to put timers on for students, in order to keep the game moving. Also, you could have a timer for the whole game; Whoever has the most points when the timer goes off wins! Have fun!

Sources:

https://bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/cribbage (Simple how-to-play site)

https://mvhm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/THE-HISTORY-OF-CRIBBAGE-Latest-1.pdf (Simple, kid-friendly read)

https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/games-tricks/the-manly-history-of-cribbage-and-how-to-play-the-game/ (Thorough, interesting, includes “how-to”)

Popularly played by seniors (my dad loved to play, and I was taught by my mom), here’s an article from a Senior Center introducing Cribbage to the game repertoire: https://cornwallmanor.org/blog/cribbage-makes-way-cornwall-manor/

Candy-Coded Morse Mondays

These two were so excited about earning their treasure through decoding the Morse Coded Monday Message that they just had to take photos of their discovery; a pile of Hawk Tickets in the vacant locker.

Yesterday was Monday, and among other things, that means Morse Code Morning Work for the Polite Pirates! Each Monday, since I introduced Morse code to the class back in January (Coding Teamwork), I’ve provided dots and dashes for deciphering. The prize for first decoder varies. At times it’s an intrinsic reward. One time, I hid a pile of behavior-plan tickets in the locker of a student who never showed up at the beginning of the year. Many of the codes contain riddles, so they are codes within codes.

The riddle within a riddle on this occasion was the vocabulary word “nonexistent” that described the Polite Pirate who had never shown up.

This was the case yesterday. I made up a word problem involving kids and candy. We have been learning fractions, and I was planning on introducing equivalent fractions first thing. Instead of saying, “Today we are going to learn about equivalent fractions,” I buried the treasure within the Morse coded message.  

Admittedly, not everyone was super into decoding this message. When I am coming up with a message, I try to keep it short. I don’t want the task to seem daunting. Another thing I have to look out for is only including letters. I avoid punctuation, and any numbers need to be spelled out. There is Morse code for letters and punctuation, but the image of the coded alphabet that I provide for the Polite Pirates does not have that code in it. (A fun, albeit challenging, task could be having the Polite Pirates figure out the code for numbers by embedding dash/dot combinations into messages that would only make sense after doing some calculating to figure out the answers to math problems. My students could build their own decoder of numbers through doing math, mixed in with Morse code.)

This is a screenshot of what I put into the Morse code translator website.

I messed up yesterday’s code. I accidentally included a number that wasn’t spelled out. When some students came to the “2” within the text, they knew it was a number. Rather than have them figure out what number it was from the problem, I told them it was an upside down five. (I can’t help myself!) It took them less than a minute to understand it was a two. 

Before stumbling across the number within the code, the Polite Pirates had figured out that it was going to be a word problem. This had some of them annoyed and others intrigued. In order to sweeten the deal, I had hinted that there would be a prize for whoever solved the problem first. Of course my hint was also a riddle: “The first to solve this will literally get the answer.” This worked because some of the first few words include “six candies.” My pirates, polite or otherwise, were going to bite onto this extrinsic motivation! Also, I was able to reteach the vocabulary literal versus figurative while they worked. 

When the word “fraction” was decoded, students knew what they were up against. Mr. Weimann was up to his many tricks. This was going to be “fun learning.” We have been working on fractions. The decoding heated up, and students began working in a frenzy. They were ready for this. 

As the final letters and words were discovered a veil of secrecy seemed to lower over the classroom. In order to earn the answer, you must figure it out. Now, students were back at their desks, hunched over their notebooks. “What is the problem about?” I prompted, half for the students working out the word problem, and half for those who were still decoding the Morse code message. I wanted the first half to understand the message of the problem, and I hoped to light a fire under the ones struggling with dots and dashes. This second goal worked, because one of my students who regularly succeeds in decoding these messages first had come into the classroom late that morning. Her pencil nearly carved the letters into her paper as she frantically discovered each letter of code. 

“Candy!” nearly everyone exclaimed, for the rumor had flown around the room like flu germs in a cramped elevator. 

Approaching the students working out the math, I asked, “What are you asked to find?” This is the second of our four word problem prompts that we use as a mantra when performing problem-solving math. 

  1. What is this problem about?
  2. What are you asked to find?
  3. What is the important information?
  4. What are you going to do? (What operations are necessary?)

I informed the front-runners that there was a riddle within the problem within the code. “Don’t be fooled,” I warned. “Look closely at who is getting candy in the end. It is written in the second person,” I instruct. I was hinting at the fact that, while you are sharing the candies with your friends, you still get to have some! “The problem states, ‘What fraction of the candy would each of you get?’” I quietly read to the students who are working out the math. 

One of the students got it. “There are three people and six candies,” he whispers. 

“Mm hmm,” I encouraged.

“Is this it?” His competition showed me her paper. She has not only written the correct answer, 2/6, but she drew pictures to show her work! I tell her yes, just as the boy shows me his paper. He has the same fraction. I then tell them to see if they can “simplify that fraction. Is there any way to make those numbers smaller, but have it describe the same amount of the candy?” They crunch the numbers simultaneously. 

I was so impressed with their work that I took pictures to project on the board.

“One-third!” they exclaim in unison. If I don’t say that they are correct verbally, my face assures them of victory. And, the action of getting a big bag of candy out of a cabinet is more proof of triumph than the class can handle. Everyone’s attention is on the Monday Morse code math masters who have earned the prize; literally the answer to the problem; six candies each to share between themselves and two of their friends. 

Before giving them the candies, I had them explain their work. They took turns writing and drawing on the board, talking their Polite Pirate peers through what they had done. The student who had drawn pictures in her notebook, not only drew them on the board but wrote complete sentences describing the whole procedure. I was so impressed that I was tempted to give her additional candies, but no, I am a pirate captain, if nothing else, and I be stingy with me treasure! (Really, I like to keep my word, strictly, when I can, because I stretch my meanings all of the time!!)

Who to share their treasure with, these two could not decide. I suggested that they witness who goes back to their desk the quietest and does the best job copying what is on the board into their spiral notebooks. The Polite Pirate pair nodded and the race was on… again. This time, every pirate but two were scrambling to get to their seats, sit up straight, and quickly copy everything the first two had explained. The candy captains walked around inspecting the work of their peers. Candy was dispersed, but you couldn’t tell because everyone was feverishly writing. 

And, this is how we began discussing equivalent fractions. As kids crunched on candy, I used the idea of candy to suggest each piece being cut in half or thirds. Halves would produce 4 pieces out of a total of 12 going to each student. Thirds would make it so that 6 pieces out of 18 would be had by each friend. We went backward, too. “How many sixes are in 18?” I asked. I had a worksheet for students to try out, and I circulated my ship… I mean classroom, and checked for understanding. 

One last thing about Morse Code. Some students complained and grumbled about the work of decoding the message. When the dust settled, I told my Polite Pirates that my intention is for them to know the code so well that they do not need to keep referencing the alphabet decoder. I had them try it out. I told them to close their eyes. “What letter is four dots?” I asked the group.

“H!” they called out in unison. 

“And, what letter is only one dot?”

“S,” the class provided. I did this with several more letters that we have seen over and over, and they had used to decipher the message still in front of them on the Monday Morning Board. They were amazed at their memory. I told them that this is how you memorize something. You have to work at it, practice it, use it. I’m planning on helping them memorize the code and see if they can decipher something without me providing the alphabet. 

Building Bridges: A Hands-On Math Lesson

This blog serves two purposes: First, I just shared a lesson with the Polite Pirates (my class) that went so well that I want to share it with everyone. And, second, due to its complexity, several students need additional clarification. I am hoping that by writing this down, I can make clear how the business of bridge-building works.

Yesterday morning I dug out the colorful, connectable, plastic blocks I’d stored away in a bin under the counter. I told my students that they would be building bridges. Cheers rang out. They were to work as a team to construct a way for a car to travel from one pile of dictionaries to another. The Polite Pirates cheered with joy.

“There’s a catch, however. You have to buy the blocks!” I exclaimed. The class groaned. “Each one costs ¼ of a dollar. (I’ve been teaching fractions and mixed numbers.)”

“How much is that?!” a few students grumbled.

“You know how much a quarter of a dollar is,” I accused. 

“Twenty-five cents?” a student clarified.

“Yes. You will work as a team of engineers. Use your Spiral Notebooks to keep track of the number of blocks. You’ll need to figure out the total cost of your bridge.

“Oh, one more thing: Your bridge is going to make you money. That’s right! Sure, it will cost you to build it, but once it is done, you can charge a toll for cars to use it. For every foot of bridge you are allowed to charge one dollar. 

Making money got their attention;)

This is the slightly confusing part (one of them, anyway): If about twenty vehicles travel across your bridge per hour, how long will it take to make (dramatic pause) one thousand dollars? 

Before setting them loose, I showed them that this problem was doable. (The looks on their faces were incredulous.) “Let’s say you build a 10 foot bridge. How much money can you charge to cross it?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Right, but that is $10 per car. If twenty cars travel across your bridge in one hour, how much money do you earn?”

Thinking… “Two hundred dollars,” a student offers. 

“Good; You are correct. Where did that number come from?” I prompt. I want the class to know how to do these calculations.

“I multiplied ten by twenty.”

“Right. If your bridge makes $200 every hour, how long will it take to get to a thousand dollars?” Their minds were working, now! 

“Five!” several students shouted in unison. 

“Don’t forget that you need to use some of that money to pay for the building blocks that you used to construct the bridge,” I remind them. And, they’re off! 

The Polite Pirates had a blast working together. I was impressed that they almost instantly formed the idea of making supports to hold up longer sections of bridge. In this way they could earn more toll money. Of course, they had to count the blocks that they used to hold up their bridge when tallying up the cost of building materials. I didn’t let them use anything other than the building blocks for construction. 

Once the bridges got to be several feet long, every single student on the team was needed to hold the bridge in place as more supports and lengths were added. I overheard one third grader explaining to his partners that even though it would cost more to use extra blocks, they would make more money from tolls, because they could make their bridge longer. I reinforced this idea by sharing, “Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, folks!”

After a timer I had set went off, I had everyone stop building and count up the number of blocks that they had used. One team split up the task by divvying up the sections to be counted. They then added all the numbers together. Next, it was time to calculate the cost of all of those blocks. One team had used 355 blocks! How could they figure out 25￠ per block? 

I reminded them that they already knew what a quarter of 100 was. “Separate the 300 from the 55,” I told them. “Each 100 would be how much?”

“Twenty-five dollars,” someone answered. 

“That’s right. Now, how many twenty-fives do you have? We’re talking about 300 blocks.” I wrote 100÷4=25 on the board. When someone suggested that they needed 3 twenty-fives, I put X3 under the 25. “These might seem like really big numbers, but you already know what ‘three-quarters of a dollar is,” I prompt.

“Seventy-five cents!” a few blurt out. 

“Not cents, though…” I can see the gears turning behind my students’ eyes. It feels like I can hear the steam coming from their ears. They even gasp with understanding. 

“Seventy-five dollars.”

“Now, for the 55 other blocks. Is there a number close to 55 that is divisible by four,” sounded like Greek to them. I reworded my question in a more leading way. “Can 48 be evenly divided by 4?” This connected with their math facts. A student raised his hand.

After deciding that 48 blocks would cost $12, we tackled the leftovers. “What’s left?” I asked the Polite Pirates who were sitting so patiently on the carpet in the front of my classroom. Counting up from 48 to 55, we discovered there were seven blocks left. “How can we figure out the cost of these?”  

When this question was met with blank stares, I quickly drew seven (very ugly) squares on the dry erase board. I drew a hasty circle around the first four. “Each of these cost 25￠. How much money is four quarters?” Lights blinked on in every students’ eyes. 

“One dollar…!”

 “And…” I prompted for the cost of the remaining three unaccounted for blocks. 

“A dollar and 75￠,” a student finished the thought.  

“So, these seven cost $1.75, the 48 blocks cost $12, and the 300 blocks cost $25 X 3,” I summed up our calculations thus far. “What will this team need to do next? Tell the person next to you.” Then I sent everyone back to their seats to work out the costs of their bridges. I told them to figure out the prices independently. Then compare your work with your teammates. In this way you can double-check your math accuracy. 

I walked around the room, helping students with their division facts. There was a wonderful hum of productive struggle. Some individuals figured out that they would have to add more than one additional hour on to their original answer in order to account for the cost of the bridge. Most found that only one hour would do the trick. 

Now that all of the math was done, it was time to write about it. I had posted a question in the Polite Pirates’ Google classroom: “How long will it take for your engineering firm to make one thousand dollars?”

They could work with partners and discuss their writing with their team, but each student was responsible for producing their own explanation of what they did. I left the math that I’d shown them on the board, so they could copy it into their notes, or just write about what we figured out together. 

One of the things I like most about using Google classroom on iPads is how easy it is to use the “Speak to Text” feature. It’s true, you have to teach and practice rereading and editing your text, in order for students to use this effectively, but it speeds up typing entire paragraphs. It also helps facilitate a more “Discourse” -style text. When my students purely type, they are less likely to include opening statements, and they will leave out key details. Through the process of “Telling” their iPads what they did, you get a more structured description. And, because it is easy and fast to do, students don’t have a problem including more details. 

Here are just a few samples of the amazing answers that the Polite Pirates typed into their Google classroom assignment.

I hope you enjoyed hearing/reading about this lesson that my students experienced this week. If you have ideas on ways to improve or modify it, let me know in the comments. Thanks, and take care.

“How to Teach Cribbage to Kids, AND Why They Need to Learn”

(Part 1 of obviously more than 1, but not sure how many just yet;)

With the winter holidays approaching, I wanted to prepare The Polite Pirates (my students) for being stuck in the house with “nothing to do.” While I’m not against video games, I think it’s wise to have some alternatives. 

Hands-on games that promote thinking and problem solving are my favorite to teach and play. Chess and Dominoes are begun early on in the year. Now, it’s time to break out the Cribbage board. 

The fact that there are tiny pieces that could easily get lost makes the unpackaging mysterious and exciting. The board looks interesting, and young students can’t wait to get their little fingers on those tiny pegs! This affords a concrete reward for paying close attention and practicing the game well. 

Teaching Cribbage to children requires a scaffolding approach. There are many rules and ways to acquire points. They must learn all of these before earning the privilege of placing pegs on the board. This motivation helps keep them interested and focused. 

Analyzing combinations to find potential points.

After showing and modeling the board just enough to wet their appetite, I explain that the first part of the game is all about analyzing your cards. You must decide which cards to keep and which ones to discard (They go in what is called a “Crib,” but we don’t worry about that at first). First, I model, looking closely at 6 cards. Leaving out the idea of runs, I explain that we are looking for pairs and combinations that make 15. With only these 2 criteria, we work on adding up card values and counting potential points.

Cribbage for Homework!

[A couple of things to keep in mind: Aces are always valued at 1 in Cribbage, and face cards are all 10. Also, and this is fun for teaching the point system/using combinations, three-of-a-kind is 3 separate pairs, totaling 6 points (2 points per pair).]

Shuffling between rounds makes it feel more like a card game than math practice.

After modeling making wise decisions regarding which card combinations make the most points, I have students try. In groups of 3, I give kids 6 cards to puzzle over. I always shuffle the deck between every “round.” This makes it feel more like a card game and less like math practice.

If interest wanes at all, you could move the pegs on the board. That will get kids into looking for as many points as possible. Also, you could suggest that if one team sees points in another team’s cards that were not discovered and therefore not counted, the team that discovered the missing points gets them! 

In other words, you have Team A and Team B. Each team gets 6 cards. If Team A only found ways to earn 4 points, but when they show their combinations, a player from Team B notices an additional way to make a combination of 15 that Team A failed to see or mention, the sly individual from Team B who uncovered the extra points gets them for their team (B, not A). This keeps everyone on the alert. 

Listen to the amazing thinking going on.

Notice that the students have to use “math discourse” to share what their cards provide. They do this to prove that they deserve the points they are claiming. It allows every player to perform backup mental math. 

This exercise of looking for combinations of 15 will continue in this way for a week or two. Once students have grasped all of the ins and outs, you can introduce “The Starter.” This card is pulled from the middle of the deck after the cards have been dealt. It is placed face up on top of the pile of leftover cards. Students now have one more card to consider when choosing the 4 cards that they will keep. The Starter is static, staying on top of the deck and being used by all teams. 

If you are interested in enriching the decision making process, tell the students that one team will actually get the cards that you discard. The two cards that each team gets rid of go into a “Crib” that the dealer uses to make points at the end of each round. This means that, in addition to trying to figure out what combinations of cards will afford you the most points, you want to keep points out of the hands of others. Don’t gift the dealer with good combinations. Or, if you are the dealer, you can feel comfortable placing a pair or good combination into the Crib. 

Students practice skip counting by twos.

A way to differentiate for your students who are continuing to make progress but could use some help is providing a chart of addends that form 15. You could also have manipulatives or base-ten boards/charts for students to make 15. Make a lesson of looking for tens and fives in number combinations. 

Just as I would have The Polite Pirates practice for a while before introducing further ideas, I will end this blog right here. Playing with numbers, considering the value of combinations, analyzing which cards should stay and which ones should go, students will enjoy the randomness of shuffled hands. “Cribbage affords players both the anticipation of the luck of the deal as well as ample opportunity to exercise their skills in discarding and play” (Bicycle blog).

https://thecaptainofclass.com/2019/12/02/card-games-can-be-controversially-classy/
Previous blog about Cribbage
Cribbage

Building Blocks of Math

Some lessons work out so well that I can’t help but share them with others. This is one of those.

Everyone wants to stack building blocks!

So far my third grade Polite Pirates (what I call my students) have learned how to round to the nearest ten and hundred, plus three-digit addition and subtraction. As we move on to multiplication and division, I came up with a way to make reviewing and practicing our foundational arithmetic skills unbelievably fun: a game.

Usually, I’ll create a game around a story. This time, I kept it super simple: “Closest to a 1000 wins!” 

Old-school building blocks are magical. You could dump them out in front of a 4 year old or a 40 year old, and you’d see the same reaction; Building. Everyone wants to stack blocks. 

The first thing I did was write three-digit numbers on the sides of some blocks; I actually wrote the numbers on pieces of paper that I taped to the sides. Then I threw them in a box. The “Box O’ Blocks” is plain-old fun to say;) I told the Polite Pirates that it was a game… Instant positive vibes. 

Here’s how you play: 

Share, Take Turns, Work as a Team
  1. Each team takes 3 blocks out of the box at random. 
  2. Add the numbers up.
  3. Closest to 1000 wins. “How do you tell who is closest?” Let students figure this out. There will be some teaching. (This is one of my favorite parts.) They’ll have to find the “difference” (subtract).
  4. As a team, decide on one block to exchange in order to get closer to 1000. Move it to the side, but not back in the box.
  5. Randomly take one more block out. 
  6. Combine this number with the others. Make a prediction. Will your new total be closer or farther from 1000?
  7. Add the numbers. Was your prediction correct? 
  8. Repeat steps 5-8. 
  9. Which combination of 3 blocks is closest to 1000?
  10. Compare your sum with that of other teams. Who is closest to 1000? 
  11. Start over; Play another round.

When I first introduced the game, I was astounded to witness the number sense that this little activity generated. Kids could instantly tell that their 3 blocks would exceed 1000 by quickly adding up the hundreds. But, they had to include the tens and ones to see which team was closer. 

Closest to a Thousand

Figuring out which team was closer to 1000 was a lot of fun, too. I had two teams competing during a math center, and everyone thought that the team with 1349 was closer than the one with 749. I drew a simple number line with 1000 in the middle. It was easy to see how far 1349 was from 1000. It’s just 349 past the 1000, but what about 749? The Polite Pirates were tricked into thinking that it was 749 units away from the mark (1000). When we subtracted 749 from 1000, the Polite Pirates saw that this team was only 251 units away from the 1000, making it the winner of that round. 

When kids have a purpose for playing, they will do any amount of math. I had the students who met with me at this center bring their Spiral Notebooks to work out their arithmetic. Some were trying to do the math in their heads. Others worked it out quickly on their papers and shouted out the answers. We figured out together how to play the game politely: Wait for everyone to solve the problem, and then compare numbers. Discuss how you got your answer. 

Multiple Strategies

We use Ready Math in my school district. One of the things I love most about Ready Math is the multiple ways to solve the same problem. I had kids drawing base-ten blocks to show their hundreds, tens, and ones. Some kids used expanded form to add up the three-digit numbers. There were kids who were able to add 3 three-digit numbers one on top of another, using the algorithm I grew up learning. 

One girl had added two numbers together, and then the third to that sum. She was thrilled to find that she could simply substitute that last step with a new number when her group chose a different block! It saved her a step. 

I was able to review regrouping on the board for those students still struggling with borrowing to subtract. Everyone was at a different level, using different tools and strategies, but we were all engaged in learning, reviewing, practicing, and having fun. 

If a kid finished before others, they simply messed with the 3 blocks, stacking them different ways, and that was perfectly okay! With only 3 they didn’t make much noise if they fell. The other mathematicians only hurried more to complete their work, too. They wanted to get their fingers on the blocks, also. “No dice till you finish figuring out how close to 1000 your group came.”

Commutative Property

I used Sketches School to show math.

Lastly, a surprising teaching moment arose when I was able to reintroduce the commutative property and mental math within adding 3 three-digit numbers. I was showing the algorithm style of adding 3 numbers on top of one another. “When you have a bunch of single-digit numbers, it can be difficult to add them all up in your head. Look for tens or combinations that are easier to work with,” I explained to my Polite Pirates. 

I showed this by pulling a column of 4 numbers out of the algorithm and writing it in a line. “You can add these ones in any order you like,” I told my learners. “Choose combinations that work best for you. Don’t forget any numbers.”

We didn’t want our center to end! Polite Pirates were reluctant to drop their blocks back in the box. But, what kid doesn’t like making noise? 

Enrichment

Finally, I will say that when I first dreamed up this simple game, I was thinking that I’d have my students buy blocks or measure how high they could build. I thought that I’d explain the three-digit numbers to represent how much mass each block was (some were more dense than others), and they could only build a 1000 kg structure… I could come up with a million scenarios for my block-building game, but it was unnecessary. Perhaps, it would be helpful if reintroducing the game to the same students down the road. 

When first explaining how to play, though, numbers on blocks in a box are all you need. If you like this lesson, give it a try. If you have thoughts on its implementation or ideas on improvement, let me know. Good luck and great teaching!

Not All Online Learning Is Created Equal

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Scarlet is a pro when it comes to imaginative play. 

Along with every other kid in the world, my 8 year old daughter Scarlet is experiencing at home, online learning during the “Stay at Home” novel Coronavirus Pandemic. She is receiving daily assignments of online activities. As I’ve been witnessing hers and preparing my own, I am evaluating what makes the most effective distance learning tools.

Recently, Scarlet was asked to log into a math website and complete a task geared toward teaching coin-counting. This cartoon animation had her making 25 cents with nickels and dimes. 

I try to let Scarlet do her online learning with as little distraction as possible, but this got to be too much for me! She was dragging coins to a spot on the screen until she accumulated 25 cents, and then it would celebrate her accomplishment with a silly jingle. I felt like my daughter was turning into a chimpanzee. 

IMG_6461I closed the device she was using and drew a grid. “I’m going to teach you a homonym; a multiple-meaning word,” I told her. “This is a table; not the kind you eat on. You use this to make sense of numbers.” 

We made a few tables with varying totals and different coins available. She made many different combinations of coins to show the same amount.

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Manipulatives help kids visualize math. 

While filling in a row of varying coins totaling a dollar, Scarlet made a slight mistake. The table already had one half dollar and one quarter. She wrote “5” in the nickels column which made me happy, but then she wrote “2” in the dimes space. I knew what had happened. She equated the value of one nickel with the number to be written in the field. No biggie. As it turned out, we happened to have toy coins that I had dug out of the closet. I presented the actual coinage on the carpet. Scarlet almost didn’t let me get out all five nickels, having realized her mistake. 

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If/Then problem solving; Cause & Effect relationships

Eventually, I made some puzzles where I would fill in certain coin fields and have Scarlet solve the missing number. “If you are making one dollar out of pennies, nickels, and dimes, and you have 8 dimes & 3 nickels, how many pennies will you have?” Not only did Scarlet solve the problem easily, but when I asked her to describe what she had done in her head, she walked me through her thinking. 

 

Thinking.

 

This is what was missing from the chimpanzee-producing online practice. The software allowed Scarlet to drop coins onto a spot on the screen and either rewarded her with a jingle or delivered a negative noise. It was up to Scarlet to figure out what worked best for getting the jingle to happen: Pull the lever to get the banana. 

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Follow Up Blog: “How Coding Can Be Taught Through Solving An Empty Field In A Math Table”

I’ve witnessed software programs that stop a kid after a few wrong answers and reteach a concept before allowing the student to continue an activity. Another way to check for thinking is having students type or video-record their reasoning for an answer. Then the educator can interact with the thinking, praising accurate steps, guiding ideas, and correcting missteps. 

The closer to simulating the tailored responses of a human teacher an online program can produce, the more thinking it will stimulate in the student. How can you make a program applicable to the most practitioners, while simultaneously being tailored to the most personalized outcomes/answers?

Card Games Can Be Controversially Classy

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Who do you think won?

Thanksgiving night 2019 my daughter Scarlet, wife Sonia, and I all sat down to play a game together. Scarlet was interested in learning Cribbage. This is a card game where players move tiny pegs that stand in holes drilled into a wooden board. Each players’ line of holes goes to 150 points. You leapfrog the pegs, so that one keeps the place of the previous accumulation of points, while the other counts out the new total. The player to get her pegs to the finish first, wins. 

I wasn’t sure how Scarlet would do with this game of many rules. There were many firsts: I taught Scarlet how to shuffle the deck. She did pretty good. I showed her how to deal the cards. Then there were the instructions of how to play.

Cribbage is all about points, and there are many ways to earn them. One of the ways to earn points is to form groupings of cards whose combined value total 15. When I witnessed Scarlet, who just turned 8 one week ago, working out the different combinations of 15, I was not only impressed with her math skills. It hit me that she was analyzing the cards and evaluating the future potential they held. 

This is a little tricky to communicate via text. Without describing the entire game, let me try to convey what Scarlet had to think about when it came to the 15s. It takes several rounds to accumulate 150 points and win a game of Cribbage. Each round begins with all of the (3) players getting 5 cards. The first thing that you do is try to decide which 4 cards you keep, for you are to give up one of them. It can be a challenging decision to make. 

See, you don’t just record the points represented in your hand. You play your cards against opponents’ cards. And then, there is a starter card that you use over and over, too. Finally, there is a crib that goes to the dealer. This is what you contribute to when you discard a card at the beginning of the round. If you’re not the dealer, you don’t want to place cards into the crib that will easily form combinations of 15, giving your opponent more points. 

IMG_2915So, it’s Thanksgiving. The dinner is cooked, consumed, and cleaned up. I’m watching my daughter wrestle with the cards in her hand. Of the five she is holding, which should she throw in the crib for someone else to use? 

Sometimes it is simple. The starter is a five, and you have three face cards (valued at 10, each), a five, and a four. Throwing the four into someone else’s crib is a no-brainer. It won’t make any points for you. How many different combinations of 15 are you looking at without the four? Try working it out.

The answer is six different combinations of 15 can be formed (3 combinations using your “5” + 3 face cards & 3 combinations using the starter card which is a “5” + your 3 face cards). What if rather than a five, you had an Ace (valued at one in Cribbage)? Now you have 3 face cards worth ten each, an Ace, and a four. And, don’t forget the starter, which is a five. If you give away one of your face cards, you would have four combinations of 15. If you gave away the four this time, you would only have three fifteens: Your 3 face cards, combined with the starter. 

IMG_4017It’s extra hard when you have to add the numbers to make fifteen. Let’s say the five cards that you are dealt are 4, 5, 6, 3, & Ace, and the starter is an 8. You have to discard one of those cards to someone else’s crib. 

  • Ace, 3, 6, 5 = 15
  • 4, 6, 5 = 15
  • Ace, 6, 8 = 15
  • 3, 4, 8 = 15

Am I missing any? It takes time and is pretty tricky finding all of the combinations. You can’t overlap any, using the same grouping in a different order. 

As I’m sure you can imagine, this is great for developing number sense. It also helps grow critical thinking skills. Scarlet was doing all of this math in her head. Once in a while, she would ask for some help. We worked through all of the different combinations to make the best decision possible. She ended up winning, surprise/surprise! 

What struck me most about this experience was the inner conflict centered on deciding which card you would choose to relinquish to the crib each round. I knew this to be an important part of the game, but watching my daughter wrestle with the decision, round after round, brought new light to the fact. With practice, she got better and more confident at choosing the card that she would let go. 

The inner conflict of choosing the best cards to keep and which to get rid of reminded me of using controversy in the classroom. Making topics controversial by providing students with opposing, nearly equal in value concepts that they must analyze and evaluate to decide which is better or more appropriate for a given situation would develop the skill of critical thinking. Cribbage could be a great way to grow this higher order thinking skill, while also developing number sense. 

This got me thinking about other card games. How might a teaching style be analogous to these card games:

“Go Fish” — Students ask for information. If you know it, you hand it over. If you don’t, the students fish for it online (ask Siri). What are students learning when you use this style of teaching? Education is a take/receive, skill-less process. During the card game, only conflict comes in deciding how honest you want to be;) The controversy lies solely in morals. 

“Rummy” — Players work at making connections between like cards. They collect as many pairs, three & four of a kind, and make runs. The player who has accumulated the greatest value in cards at the end of play, wins. Analogy to teaching: Making connections is great! Each time you find two like ideas, you group them in your head. You categorize thoughts and store them away. Furthering this game’s message, however; If you’ve played this game much, you’ve probably learned that runs are where the play is. You can play one of your cards off of someone else’s run. You only get the points that your card is valued, but at least you get to play it! This symbolizes a group or team-learning approach. Students must decide which information they want to keep, and which to discard. This decision will be based on how valuable it could be in the future or how useful it is right now. A potential drawback to this approach is that it teaches students that the kid with the most knowledge in the end wins at life. 

“Poker” — Kids play this when they try to get away with not completing assignments that they think won’t be checked or graded. The lesson students learn from this teaching style: Life is all about tricking people into thinking you are smarter than you really are, have more knowledge about something than you really do, and/or are able so do something when really you are truly incompetent. 

“War” — Without consciously choosing, each player places the top card from their pile face up. Highest card value wins all. When there are ties, War ensues, and only one winner gets tons of cards. This is the opposite of equitable teaching. You teach everyone the same, period; Zero differentiation. Some kids greatly benefit. Everyone else plays along, losing in the end. It should be stated that early on in War, one person begins accumulating the aces and face cards. The other player(s) know that they are going to lose… Unless, they cheat. And, even then, it is hard to come back when you don’t know what card your opponent is playing. 

“Solitaire” — “Go practice what I taught you.” Players become familiar with the cards and some relationships between them. They may practice shuffling. An element of racing a time could make this game more challenging, but you might as well be marooned on a literal island! 

The thing is, we use each of these styles in our teaching. As teachers, we cannot assess everything, and sometimes we have to use a poker face. Sometimes we need to have students play quietly on their own, and there are times when it is good for a kid to repeat the same action over and over, in solitary practice. When a student does not know the definition of a vocabulary word in the middle of a lesson, it is appropriate for them to

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Black Friday found me ordering some Cribbage sets for my classroom.

ask, and there are other times when we tell them to “go fish” for it in their text. Everyday, all day long, students are making connections, building relationships between concepts and accumulating knowledge. Hopefully, there isn’t too much “Rummy” being called out in your classroom;)

When the profession of teaching seems to be swimming in data and everything seems like a numbers game, I suggest injecting life into it by making a topic controversial: Give it an element of inner conflict through pitting two or more opposing ideas against one another. This will require some creative thinking on your part, but the critical thinking through cognitive productive struggle that students will be engaged in will far outweigh the work you put into it. Good luck, and let me know what you do and how it goes through tagging me and my research partner James Norman on Twitter and/or using #ControversyCanBeClassy when posting. Also, feel free to leave a comment, here;)

Mission Impossible: The Engineering Process with SpheroEDU

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Is your “mission” to get kids excited about learning, or is it testing?

“I have a math test to give you, but I thought we could program some Spheros instead,” I said Friday morning to applause from the Polite Pirates of Room 207. Students’ cheers gave way to music… Mission Impossible Theme Music! 

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it… And, you’re going to want to accept it… is to rescue people from certain peril,” I proposed. With everyone on the carpet, I explained that before a rescue, engineers would set up models that they could use to plan out their efforts to minimize loss of equipment and life. Their mission was to program Spheros to make it through a model of obstacles, getting to someone or group of people who needed help. The Sphero couldn’t stray from the path or touch the walls because it would be damaged and not be able to complete its mission. 

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I walked them through what they would experience.

The students were riveted to my instruction as I taught the “Engineering Process” that they would need to use while figuring out the most effective code for completing their rescue. This was the real reason for the lesson, but simultaneously they would get so much more out of learning/practicing coding, problem-solving, and working together in a team. 

I went over each scenario, pointing out the “criteria” and the “constraints”, two vocabulary words from the “Engineering Process” model from Foss Science. Students whispered with neighbors about which they were more interested in trying. I told them that if they mastered one, they may move onto another “Mission”. 

Students then returned to their seats to get out their math spiral notebooks for taking notes about how they used the “Engineering Process” while solving their missions. They opened the Google slideshow that had all of the missions, as well as an image with the Engineering Process in it. I had “made a copy for each student” through Google classroom. 

I pulled popsicle sticks with student numbers on them to pair kids. As numbers were drawn, pairs came to the carpet to redeem their Sphero robot. Then they chose whatever mission fancied them most. With two pairs per mission, the class was a buzz of engineering within moments.

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“The Medic was difficult, but a lot of fun,” one student told me as I circulated the room.

 No one got to complete more than one mission, and most did not completely finish every parameter I had set for them, but every single student was 100% engaged in a learning activity full of purpose. 

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The problem-Solving was explosive!

I want to back up to the beginning of the day, before I tell you how this memorable lesson came to a close. Students entered my room to find me painting posters. They asked what I was doing. Because I didn’t know exactly what to call it, I didn’t give them a straight answer. That drove them crazy. They asked to help. “Sure,” I answered, getting out more paint brushes, cups and paints. All I had to do was outline things, and kids would fill in. When I told them that the white was snow or that the red was fire, it fueled their curiosity all the more! Dave Burgess calls this “Preheating the Grill” (Teach Like a Pirate, 2012). My students were so hooked on this upcoming lesson, they hardly wanted to go to gym! Have you ever heard of such a thing? 

While students were at their special, I made some finishing touches and turned a fan on to help the paint dry quickly. Then I came up with names, stories, and varying parameters for each mission. I took pictures of the maps, typed up the scenarios, and threw together a slideshow to share with the class.  

Back to the lesson. Throughout the “Engineering Process”, while students were working on coding Spheros, I stopped everyone a couple of times to instruct them to take screenshots of their code. That way they could have snapshots of different levels of success. It would help them describe their problem-solving, later. Finally, I put together a Flipgrid for students to make selfie-videos describing how they used the “Engineering Process” to solve (or come close to solving) their mission. If they finished, they could watch their peers’ videos and comment. 

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I didn’t even realize that this was National STEM day! (November 8th, 2019)

We DID take the math test, but in the afternoon. They did fine. I’m sure they will remember that forever;) 

#ZombieApocalypseRoom207

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The Zombies of Room 207

I am NOT against play.

I wish there were more time for it. And, time is my enemy. I have a lot to teach in a very limited amount of time.

Time is against me in another way, as well: I constantly ask myself, “How will this learning stand the test of time? Why would my students remember any of this?”

One answer to this question:

#ZombieApocalypseRoom207

It was the first day of ELA standardized testing. I still had several math concepts to teach IMG_4199before students took the Math PSSAs (Pennsylvania’s standardized tests for elementary schools).

How would I present math when students’ brains were fried?

Serve them up for Zombie hors devours!

I wonder, now, if it was the metaphor of brain-eating, zombie-creating testing that got me on this kick. Either way, everyone loves a good apocalypse theme… And, I delivered. As soon as I got rid of my PSSA tests and dropped my students off at lunch, I recovered my stowed away phone and went to work.

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Problem from ReadyMath that I revamped with zombie theme

Earlier in the year a student had shown me the app Chatterpix. I used this to snap a pic of our classroom spider and make it talk. This spider, EEKK, named after the way students are supposed to sit on the carpet while pair-sharing; Elbow, Elbow, Knee to Knee; has been hanging out in our third grade classroom since his introduction early in the year. I was moving him every now and again, suggesting that he wanted new vantage points from which to witness students’ good behavior/sharing skills. The students love pretending things are alive, and we had fun with it. When I wasn’t moving him for a while students began grumbling and commenting, so I hid him away. Now, 5 min. away from kids, I took a picture of EEKK who was in a cabinet next to the squirt bottle I use to mist the plants. When students watched the video, they exploded in predictions of where EEKK was hidden!

The message of the video was simple: There are zombies lurking, and we need to learn capacity.

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Pic of 2nd day: Review Gallon Guy and workout perimeter problem

Just as I had predicted, my third grade students didn’t care that a toy spider wasn’t alive; that, if it were, it wouldn’t be able to handle a squirt bottle; or that a tiny squirt bottle of water wouldn’t be enough to fend off zombies! They were thrilled to learn about standard liquid measurement and copy my Gallon Guy drawing from the board. I got out containers, and we discussed capacity. 

The next day, was Tuesday, the second day of standardized ELA testing (PSSAs) in the morning. As per law, I put all electronic devices away, until I had rid my room of PSSA materials. While the students were at lunch, I made a new movie. This time, I got fancier. I took a snapshot of EEKK on red tile and used Apple’s Keynote App to erase all of the red background with Instant Alpha. Then I stuck him on top of a pic of a moat.

Chatterpix was used to make EEKK present a new problem of creating a perimeter to protect the classroom spider from zombies while he rested. He couldn’t be on guard 24/7!

With each passing day, I added increasingly difficult problems to EEKK’s predicament. After digging a moat, EEKK had to fill it with water. If it took him 5 minutes to get one gallon, and each linear foot of moat required two gallons, how long would it take to completely fill the moat? Was this question real-world? Well, minus the zombie theme, yeah, I think so;)

img_1572.jpgEEKK wasn’t completely secure, surrounded by only a moat. He decided to build a fort on

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I had to review this several times.

the land he had partitioned from the zombie-infected outside. Luckily Amazon was still going strong and available to drone-drop an order of lumber on EEKK’s land square. But, we needed to figure out how much it would cost us. While the outer perimeter of the moat was a 10′ X 10′ square, the moat took up some of the inside space. If the moat was exactly one foot wide all the way around, what would the perimeter of the inner square be? Students needed some perception help with this one. I even had to break out the clay and make a moat to demonstrate the inside square being smaller than the outside one.

Once we figured out the perimeter of the inner square, which would be the length of fence that EEKK would construct, we had to calculate how much this material would cost. Each foot of lumber was going to require $1.25.

The #ZombieApocalypseRoom207 was so much fun that more characters wanted in on the action! Enter the #PolitePirates. Now, #CaptainIronKnee, Mary (pronounced “muh-ree” for a different story), and Zeus want in on EEKK’s pristine perimeter project. They are a little picky, though. They each want their own space. Now, we must figure out how much more  lumber we will need in order to build walls within our fort to partition individual spaces for each of the four inhabitants. Plus, they need a “Common Place” for all of them to eat and converse together; a shared space.

For this part of the project, I had students use the geoboard app on their iPads. They had to make the perimeter of the fort, 8 units by 8 units, with one “rubber band”. Then they could create any size spaces within that for the four characters, leaving an additional, fifth space, for the common space. The only parameter was that all of the corners must

perimeter of 5 spaces
This clever student had the idea of drawing lines on each unit to keep track of counting.

be right angles. (This was so that the linear measurement of perimeter was more accurate. It was enough to figure out the cost and time to construct our forts. I didn’t need to teach the pythagorean theorem on top of everything else!)

Once they designed their fort interiors, they had to figure out how much the materials would cost. “Keeping linear units at the price of $1.25/each, how much money are we looking at spending for your fort?”

One thing that was very difficult to communicate clearly was the fact that you didn’t have to count a unit that functioned as two walls twice: If a room inside the fort shares a wall with the outer perimeter or another room, you only count that structure once. (It is tricky, even, to write about this.)

Self-Reflection: What I would do differently

The apocalypse began in fantastic form. The students loved it. The theme was fun and the problems were challenging and engaging. They quickly became overwhelming, however. There needed to be more teaching. I sat with some struggling students and walked them through the use of geoboard. I had them make the same exact shapes as me, and we figured out the perimeters together. This worked well.

Also, the idea of shared walls was very tricky. Two things could remedy this confusion. Make the parameters so that not walls would be shared, or have kids use popsicle sticks to actually build model forts. I wanted to do this last idea, but Wegmans didn’t have any sticks, and I was out of time. Teams could use clay bases and even fill the moat with water. Manipulative money could be used to “buy” the materials from a Zombie store. Students could earn the money by doing chores or figuring out other problems.


Another lesson-learned: Don’t overdo the theme. I am guilty of this. I tried doing a data lesson using the zombies, and not only did everyone grown, but it didn’t even make that much sense without teaching data-analysis, first. The video is cute, and I’ll use it in the future. Plus, students did love the game of throwing zombies at the school.

Self-Reflection: AWESOMENESS and things to grow

Even though the data lesson was not perfect, it gave us Zombie puppets. I had the students use the puppets for an ELA lesson. They made their own Chatterpix videos where their zombies told stories.

The creativity and open-ended practice was unparalleled.

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The teaching and creativity seemed endless!

The teaching moments were limitless. I never even got into the cost of carpeting the inside of the fort with different flooring styles! We discussed and figured out area, but it was enough to reteach/learn fractions with four quarters equaling one dollar and division with 12 being broken up into groups of four (quarters) to see the money problem different ways.

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This student began erasing her art because she thought she was in trouble. “NOOOOOOOO!!!” I shouted. She had drawn the Polite Pirates talking over their fort fence with the misunderstood zombies.

And then there is the artwork. In addition to coloring in the zombie puppets, some students drew illustrations for their videos. I had given the class the premise for their zombie stories: The zombies didn’t really want to eat brains. They just wanted to be smart, and they thought that eating brains would help them. The Polite Pirates explained the problem of this misperception to the zombies and everything was fixed. Each student made up his/her own rendition of the story.

The Future of #ZombieApocalypseRoom207

In the future I’d like to incorporate some supplemental reading and ELA components. My friend, Julia Dweck has written a couple of cute kid books about zombies that I would love to incorporate.

Can you recommend others in the comments?

Any other zombie must-dos?