Ms. Bearse's Site

We continued our investigation of prisms today.  

Once we made a lot of prisms all with a volume of 300 cubic centimetres, we calculated the surface area of each.

We made a summary chart, and then tried to make a box with a bigger area than those listed, and tried to make a box with a smaller area than those listed.

We learned that a cube has the smallest surface area, and that a long skinny box would have the largest surface area.

We also had a few patterns from visualpatterns.org that intrigued us.

We’re looking at how the visual and the algebraic patterns are connected.
It’s a new way of thinking!

We saw the theatre complete presentation on healthy relationships today in period B.

We were working hard right until the bell today!  After our quiz, we got into pairs and were given a challenge to create a box with a volume that is exactly 300 cubic centimetres.  

Dimensions were determined….nets were made, and cut out

Boxes were assembled

Next steps will be to calculate surface area on Monday, and to have a look at which ones have the biggest and smallest surface areas.

We looked at the pages we brainstormed yesterday….we cut out strips and categorized all of our ideas.

We grouped similar ideas together

And tried to make sense of it all.

We then used all of our inspiration to solve a tricky word problem.

We had a guest speaker with us today to discuss technical drawing.  He is an instructor at Queen’s and teaches first year engineers their technical drawing course.

Today we had a look at how people solve problems.  We had one member of each group solve a problem out loud, while the other group members looked for strategies that were used, and kept a log of what techniques and words were used.

We noticed how weird it is to say alll he things that go through your mind while solving problems.  We also noticed how hard it is to observe and take notes.

We will be compiling a list of things that good problem solvers do, and then hopefully using that list a lot this term to help us improve our problem solving skills.

While looking at learning skills today, a classmate asked “how do you ‘not give up’?”  Wanting clarification about what it means to persevere, and strategies to get through difficult problems (in life and in math).

We took a break from the math, and looked at all the strategies we could brainstorm to keep going, and get motivation….we looked at changing our thoughts, to setting small goals, to asking for help, and changing up approaches.  Here’s our list.  

Hopefully we will all become more resilient problem solvers in math and in life.

Look at that blossom!  The beans are no longer getting taller.  Their energy is being used for other purposes….like blooming.

We are looking at our first test, and figuring out what went wrong for the questions we didn’t do well.  We are classifying our errors (inattention, computation, precision, and problem solving) and writing out solutions.  It’s interesting to see the patterns emerge.  Some of us need to pay more attention!

We looked at exponents today, and built models using toothpicks.

We looked at the effect of the brackets, and the coefficients

We also looked at what squared and cubed mean.

We noticed that within this big cube, with side length 2x, we can fit 8 little cubes with side length x.  We can expand the expression (2x)^3 to be (2x)(2x)(2x) which is 8x^3.