Weekly Report & Reflection Week #9!

Reflection 9

This week's session we started the class with the instructor explaining to us a math portfolio that we have to create. After that our classmates started their learning activity presentations. The focus for this session is measurement. The presenters showed us the "Perimeter Around The Area" video, by the Brazillions, on YouTube. Watch below:

After we watched the video we played a game board using dice and shapes. It was a fun game but was not too sure how it related to area or perimeter. It would probably be a good game for a "Minds On" activity. The second presentations was also for the measurement unit but focused on circles (circumference and diameter).

We started by the string and circle diagram activity. We took the string and measured the circle with it and recorded it as the circumference. Then we measured the diameter of the circle with a ruler. We divided the circumference by the diameter and got a number very close to 3.14 but not exactly that, as it was an approximate, but we did not get a  number that was very off, so it was good. This activity introduced us to the number pi. 

Then we did another activity with toothpicks and a piece of chart paper. It introduced us to the concert of pi in degrees which is 180 degrees. It was all about the rotation of toothpicks! Awesome activity. I think these activities would definitely be useful for me as my teaching block this January would be all about circles. It would include circumference and area with some other concept. I am teaching grade 8 so these activities are definitely applicable. 

We got referred to YouTube channel: Numberphile for more ideas, by our classmates. 

This was the end of the second presentation followed by a third presentation. Also focused on the measurement strand, but is on a different topic, called time. We worked through a story that had a math problem in it. Using a timeline we figured out the answer. It was a good activity focused for the younger grades. 

After all the presentations we started a jumping activity. Which was great, I think if that is applied in a classroom it would be great to help students estimate and find actually measurements from the jumping activity. It can also help students measure using non-standard units rather than metric. Definitely a very fun activity which involves measuring too using different standard or non standard units.