Activities
Below are short descriptions of all the activities that we have implemented during our project. For further information on these activities, you can use the drop down menu at the top of the page for more detailed descriptions of each activity.
Tangram
These activities include folding your own tangram pieces and using them to create different shapes. Each of the tangram activities takes an early education manipulative and advances it to create tasks for higher grades. These activities focus on areas and could include most concepts focused in geometry and fractions with different variations of each activity. More specifically, each tangram activity involves finding area in a different way and using the standard area formulas, as well as gives students the opportunity to notice characteristics of the shapes to make the desired shape.
While implementing these activities, several changes based on the students' thoughts have been made to make the activity. Each version of the Tangram Activity can be found in the menu bar at the top of the page.
One-Straight Cut
The One-Straight Cut activities are centered around the ideas of symmetry. These activities give students the opportunity to use critical thinking skills to figure out how to fold and cut their origami paper with one straight cut to get the desired shape. These hands-on activities allow students to fold the shapes they created to deduce the type of symmetry of each shape.
The other variation of this activity with similar ideas is the One-Cut heart. We include algebraic and geometric thinking during each step of the folding-and-cutting process while making one heart, a two-connected heart, and a four-connected heart.
The One-Straight Cut activities are centered around the ideas of symmetry. These activities give students the opportunity to use critical thinking skills to figure out how to fold and cut their origami paper with one straight cut to get the desired shape. These hands-on activities allow students to fold the shapes they created to deduce the type of symmetry of each shape.
The other variation of this activity with similar ideas is the One-Cut heart. We include algebraic and geometric thinking during each step of the folding-and-cutting process while making one heart, a two-connected heart, and a four-connected heart.
Operation Square
The Operation Square activities focus on different types of operations, and we have implemented order of operations, decimal operations, fraction operations, and more with one activity. This type of activity gives students a hands-on method to create and to solve problems using whichever concept the Operation Square is focused on.
Each variation of the activity will be included under the Operation Square tab in the activities drop down menu at the top of the page.
Pythagorean Theorem
The Pythagorean Theorem activities have students explore properties of triangles using rubber bands, protectors and geoboards. Students will discover the Pythagorean Theorem through origami and algebra. To fully understand the pythagorean theorem, students will use it to fold the Pythagorean and Equiangular Spiral and solve problems.
Each variation of the activity will be included under the Pythagorean Theorem tab in the activities drop down menu at the top of the page.
