Bring a little art into your math class as you begin to use the Pythagorean theorem and your students first meet irrational numbers.
Wheel of Theodorus
Category: Math and Art
Hexadecimal coloring
Probably most of us have heard of and even used hexadecimal color codes. Don’t you wonder why their number descriptions really make sense? In this activity we first ask students to color in our Golden Spiral by giving them the…
Mixing colors with food dye
What do you wonder about these recipes for coloring? What would happen if I used the wrong recipe (i.e. cake mix instead of egg dying) for coloring my eggs? Do all of the recipes (cake, icing, and eggs) have basically…
Valentine’s Day and the Lunar New Year
Which Sweet Heart candies are the best deal? – Students decide which quantity of Sweet Heart candies is the best deal. Ratio tables, unit ratios, devising convincing arguments. 6.RP.2, 6.RP.3, 7.RP.2 Sweetheart Candies – unit rate and ratio activity using those little candy…
New Year’s Eve ball drop
On Saturday evening, December 31st, 2017 at 12:59 pm, much of the world will be watching the iconic Times Square Tower’s New Year’s Eve ball drop 141 feet to the roof of the One Times Square Building in Manhattan, NY. This…
Winter holiday activities (13 ideas!)
Do I have enough wrapping paper? – Students estimate the size of a gift and decide if the given wrapping paper is going to be enough. Finally they try to create a rule for determining enough wrapping paper from a present’s…
Spiraling triples
Let students explore the patterns of perfect squares and Pythagorean Triples as they analyze our piece of art and decide why the resulting construction looks like spiraling squares. For a finale they color their own spiraling triple. The activity: SpiralingTriples-activity.pdf
Hands of “Support”
Lorenzo Quinn, an Italian sculptor, created and temporarily installed this piece of art entitled “Support” in Venice. Quinn used his own children’s hands to design this piece. His intention was to demonstrate our need of human support to ensure the…
Really big beach towel
Act One: Check out this beach towel! What do you wonder? What would you like to know? Miami artist, Misael Soto (pictured on the left below), created this giant art project to make a statement about people sharing territory at the beach.…
Fibonacci coloring
Lots of people enjoy coloring books. Evidently people who like to multitask can find a means of calming their energies and reach a peaceful place by simply coloring designs. Coloring in these drawings allows you to relax and just create pretty…
Fireworks on your calculator
Let your students experiment with their graphing calculators to create a nice fireworks display? We’ve written a brief activity that questions students about manipulating parabolas, adjusting their calculator windows, and helping them celebrate whatever. Or consider using Desmos or Geogebra to create these fireworks. Enjoy! Or…
Mother’s Day activities
Mother’s Day by the numbers – Mother’s Day is right around the corner and this means big business for the greeting card and floral industries. Let your students practice averages, percents, and large numbers while they analyze the statistics on Mother’s…
A gorgeous, glittery Mother’s Day card
Uh oh! How do you find the area of a heart? Get your students to help you calculate how many sequins you’ll need to order for this mother’s day class project. The activity: BejeweledMother’sDayCard.pdf Mother’sDay-card-blank – If you want…
Pascal coloring and modular math
This is the third and final activity in the Pascal’s Triangle series. In this activity students again have the opportunity to color as they investigate Pascal’s triangle and the patterns that it shows. The activity might be used first in…
