Week 2: Multi-sensory Math Activities (Post 1 of 2)

 Week 2: Multisensory Math Activities - RECAP of activities with students

(Option A #1)

I was incredibly excited reading about patterns in fruit and nature, as well as 2D and 3D configurations for shapes and models. My Grade 6s are currently completing a guided inquiry project on Geometry in Real Life and they are encouraged to explore any area that integrates geometric shapes and/or geometric patterns. A large number of them discovered and shared patterns such as the rotation in pineapples, the behaviour of honeybees, and how they rotate in patterns of exactly 120O to create these symmetrical, regular hexagons. Finding Geometry in Nature (Children’s Discovery Museum) is a fantastic source that encourages students to find patterns outdoors, in their kitchen, etc. One student also talked about the mathematics in pasta and the configuration of different types and shapes of pasta (Pasta by Design). 

For their activity, they were asked to find 3-5 powerful images that captured the beauty in geometry. Below are some of the snapshots or images that my student found that intrigued them.

Figure 1: Exploring patterns of hexagons on pineapples

Q: What did you notice?

A: pieces of pineapple were in hexagons, there are different lines of hexagons, the angle of the spirals go in different directions

Figure 2: Honeybees and honeycombs

Q: What do you notice?

A: They are all made up of the same shape, they repeat, they are hexagons, they are regular, they are made up of triangles, what happens if the pattern is no longer hexagon, is something wrong with the honeybees?

 (Option A #3)

One of my students rarely talks, and in fact, up until this year, there were concerns about her ability to speak (her past teachers contemplated if she was mute or had verbal ‘disabilities’). Coming into middle school, she has improved her communication skills, but minimally. Because we are preparing for math presentations, I knew this would be a difficult task, especially if the topic was not engaging for her. Over Christmas, I learned this student was incredibly talented with origami and paper folding. She created these beautiful pieces- snowflakes, stars, boxes, etc, all from paper folding. Her creative ability to create 3D objects was astounding and expressive!. I offered her the option to create origami pieces for her project (instead of simply researching geometric art or artists). She also helped me with Activity #3 and provided observations when she assembled the platonic solids. In our discussion, I asked her what she noticed. Some of her responses and observation:

• We started with equilateral triangles (I was surprised to hear her integrate specific terminology and to verbalize this out loud)

• The smaller shape created a pyramid

• The more triangles, the more sides the final shape has (tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron)

• The triangles are getting smaller and smaller, shape getting more round

It was intriguing to see her level of engagement improve as tactile activities were much more comforting for her. Her application of polygons was more apparent and gave me a better snapshot of her retention and understanding of the content. This parallels the findings from Boaler's (2014) video about how as educators, we can better gauge our students' comprehension if we allowed for the content to be expressed or communicated in ways outside of the traditional math styles. So many students solidify their knowledge through tactile and sensory learning.

I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures because she wanted to keep the shapes that were created!