Giant Macaroon Nutcracker – In 2013, Chef Andrew Yeo, built a giant macaroon nutcracker in a Boston hotel using given amounts of ingredients. Students try to figure out how much of each ingredient I will need to make a similar but much…
As a snowflake falls from the sky, its crystal grows according to the humidity and temperatures of the air that it passes through. In this activity, students interpret a graphic that clarifies that growth and try to deduce what conditions…
14 Activities to bring some seasonal math to your classroom! Ways to cook a turkey; shopping activities; football stuff; and seasonal giving.
3 activities for the Fourth of July: (1) Folding analysis to make a 5-pointed star; (2) Parabola manipulation to create a fireworks image on your calculator; and (3) Ratios, creativity, and art in creating new flag patterns.
Here in the Northeast, flowers are blooming and trees are leafing out. We thought the creation of a tree that grows before your eyes might be akin to what is going on all around us. What do you see that…
It’s a gorgeous ball, covered with Waterford Crystal triangles, shaped as a geodesic icosahedron. Every New Year’s Eve it descends in Times Square to mark the beginning of the new year. Students can take a closer look at this construction…
Point of view – With any set of cubes, enjoy building this creation using our two view-point pictures. How many blocks are in my stack? What is the least number of blocks that I used? The most number of blocks that I used?…
This would be a good date to play with Pythagorean Triples. Pythagorean Triples and coloring – Pythagorean triples are not only handy for students to recognize but produce some interesting and lovely patterns. We’ve combined a little coloring with our Pythagorean…
Students surmise what the difficulty of a jig saw puzzle entails and use rate calculations to estimate finishing times. They try to confirm whether doubling the number of pieces really increases puzzle completion time by a multiple of four.
Artistic way to encourage understanding of a conic section. Participants physically build an ellipse by choosing two foci and sketching the figure through a loop of string. While stitching an elliptical string design they puzzle about varying the foci spread and the loop length to create more extreme ellipses and are intuitively introduced to the measurement of eccentricity.
Since beaches are starting to open again, we thought this activity might bring smiles and hopes. 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),…
It’s time to dye eggs … or make a rainbow colored cake. Proportions, saturation, hue and shade.
Clock math, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,1,2,3,4,5,6,7… is modular math. Let your students learn about the usefulness of modular math as they color and explore Pascal’s Triangle. Very pretty math!
