Math Links for Week Ending Mar 22nd, 2013

Was in a session with John Scammell today and was reminded of this great starter for a problem. The largest gummy bear. So here is a blog post that has links to a few different people that have used this (including John). http://musingmathematically.blogspot.ca/2012/08/gummy-bear-revisited.html

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D, MFM2P, MPM2D

Nice beginning of a 3Acts from Dan Meyer (who else?) This one is about discounts and the premiss is about what kind of discount would you choose. The nice thing is the links to the similar and real coupons that ask similar questions (from 101qs.com)
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=16525
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

What a great project Advanced Functions. Why not make families of functions into an art project. I love the way this teacher displays them for the entire school to see like an art opening. Awesome
http://samjshah.com/2013/03/12/families-of-curves-3/#
Curriculum Tags: MHF4U

I like this post from I Speak Math about doing homework. I struggle with the idea of giving homework. Yes it is important for kids to practice but our weakest kids often don't do the homework because they either don't think they can and aren't willing to try or when they do try they get frustrated and quit easily. I don't know that there is any one strategy that always works but anything is worth a try. From the blog: "The homework is always easier than the work we do in class.  I do not want them to struggle at home where I can’t help them.  I just want to reaffirm the main ideas in class."
http://ispeakmath.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/i-just-cant-grade-homework/
Curriculum Tags: All

Want to calculate Pi without all that pesky business of circles and stuff? Have all kinds of toothpicks and don't know what to do with them. Why not use them to calculate Pi using the Buffon's needle experiment. A great way to show how probability is connected to Pi
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2013/03/14/
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MDM4U

Here is a nice activity for calculus about related rates. Well laid out and includes some introspective stuff about why to do related rates.
http://samjshah.com/2013/02/12/related-rates-yet-another-redux/
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U

Here's a fun little activity dealing with properties of quadrilaterals. It is to use the idea of an Instagram profile that kids have to make for different quadrilaterals. Its an activity that doesn't have to be specific to any quadrilateral but could be used for any thing that has characteristics that could be described.
http://drawingonmath.blogspot.ca/2013/03/instagram-for-quadrilaterals.html
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8





Taboo is a game where you are given a word that you have to describe for your friends to guess. The catch is that you are given four other words that you cannot use while describing your mystery word. Why not create some cards to do the same thing in math. This teacher did and has her students actually create the word sets.
http://fawnnguyen.com/2013/03/08/math-taboo-game.aspx
Curriculum Tags: All