This week we explored the Pythagorean Theory. We started by experimenting with "Cheez-Its" how and why it work, what each variable stands for and how it all sums up so very nicely. It was a huge success. Hearing the kids say that they had learned the formula in years past but didnt know what it meant or how it worked until now, was a great "trophee" moment! Its moments like those that give teachers the boost to keep working hard and use time wisely to plan for effective hands on activities that will give your students those real-life connections. Needless to say, I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the week. :) Later on in the week, while still discussing the Pythagorean Theorem, we moved on to discussing how it can be used to find the distance between two points on a coordinate plane. At first, no one saw the relation, but as I continued explaining how a right triangle can be formed from two points, and you are basically solving for the hypotenuse of a right triangle using the formula that we had been working with for days, you could see the light bulbs slowly but surely burning bright! Again, another "ahaa" moment. After exploring several examples, and adding new entries in our interactive notebooks to serve as a review later on, we played a fun Distance MathLib. The kids were ecstatic. Controlled Chaos as I like to call it! Kids were moving around, having great discussions amongst each other defending their answers and explaining to others, why their method worked, it was simply amazing, and it brought them out of the monogamy of typical seat work which none of us are a fan of! Here are a few shots of the students working on their MathLib.
