Wheel of Theo in the Gym

I just finished building the Wheel of Theodorus in the gym with my 4th period class. It went pretty well and the kids did a great job with their accuracy. They were a little out of control at times, but it was a nice activity for a Friday. Compared to the hand drawings we were right on target with the number of triangles that we could make without overlapping. The students were able to explain what we were doing to both the Principal and the Ast. Principal. The only thing I would do different is to tie the bottles together with something thicker so that you could see the string on the picture.

ARTICLES

Perimeter and Area:
This was a nice article and was similar to the activity that Bill shared in class last week. One part that really spoke to me was in the first paragraph. The following things were stated...
1. Students develop knowledge through interaction between the student and the knowledge
2. Students do not think like adults
3. Students learn well through social interaction
There is a lot of truth to these 3 statements.

Chp. 9 Exploring Connections between teaching, learning and assessing Mathematics for Understanding

I haven't finished this article, but if you are going to read on I would suggest this article. The teacher/researcher is focusing on opened-tasks. She had been a math consultant for 2 years and discusses the steps that it took to change her classroom.