Past projects 2
Hands-on Math for Happy Learners
Funded Oct 12, 2017My students and I cannot adequately express how awesome these materials have made our class!!! As the boxes arrived, students gathered around to peek inside. "It's like Christmas in math!!" Many offered to help set up the document camera so we could use it right away. This tool is so incredibly useful in our class discussions, since students can show their work and explain it to their peers.
Students have also responded well to the bright colored paper. They get excited whenever I hang up, hand out, or display something on these colors. They are more willing to work because the colors are bright and fun (and usually it's a get-up-and -move activity).
With some of our multi-day lessons, students are having a hard time remembering from day to day. The large post-it pads make it easier for us to take class notes, saving them for the next day. (Students are consistently amazed with these HUGE papers, and want to write on them—even math!) it's also helpful for some of my special education students to be able to copy them down at their own pace instead of me erasing the board!
Overall, your donations have made my classroom a happier place. And happiness makes learning so much more fun. Thank you for your generosity in helping us love learning.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Capell
Play Doh Please: Hands-on 3-D Geometry Practice
Funded Feb 18, 2017Thank you so much for contributing to my classroom! My students were thrilled to get some PlayDoh days, and have been thrilled to get to use it to discover patterns in geometry. After one class was finished with a project using the PlayDoh, several students asked if they could use the PlayDoh to do some of their other projects. One student even said, "I really like this geometry unit, because we do fun things with PlayDoh and other hands-on activities".
Our favorite project to introduce cross sections is about cutting open square watermelon. These are watermelon grown in cubic boxes to create cubic watermelon. They are super exciting to see, but very expensive (several hundred dollars.) Students use their playdoh to create model square watermelon, and then cut it open to see what shapes the red part of the watermelon would look like. For twelve and thirteen year olds, this is great to reinforce the concept that cross sections are talking about the two-dimensional shape, instead of the outside. They love making the playdoh into their watermelon and using the dental floss to cut it open into hexagons, pentagons, squares, rectangles, triangles, trapezoids, and other shapes. Students had an absolute blast cutting their shapes, and showing each other what they got.
As students build their confidence with three-dimensional shapes, we talk about real-world uses for these skills. Students are thrilled to see video examples of 3-d printers, and printing of buildings, and also traditional construction methods that use these skills. They have access to 3-d printers in several other classes, and are excited to take their new knowledge from math into these other disciplines.
In math class, we will continue to build on our cross sections experience to discover volumes and surface areas and how they are related. We will also use the playdoh in these endeavors to help fill shapes and show how volumes of pyramids and prisms are related by building them.
My students have benefited greatly from your generosity. I and they appreciate your involvement in our classroom.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Capell
This classroom project was brought to life by Wells Fargo, Utah and 5 other donors.