RE: Share your classroom ideas here

2017-04-30T18:50:38Z

Hello. My name is Nelly Stoyanova. I am from Bulgaria and I am a teacher in Mathematics, Informatics and Information Technologies. The book "THE NUMBER DEVIL" provokes many ideas for working with students. I will share some of them I hope you will like them.
When I told my students about the characters in the book The number devil, some of their reactions were "I also want to have a devil of the numbers," "Let's go hunting for devils," "This book is very cool," " Are there Devils in Physics and Chemistry? " I was delighted by their desire to study and the fact that they liked the idea for the devil, but my ambition was not to find a devil, but to provoke them to become the devil of the numbers.
I used different options to get them to take on the role of the devil. I divided them into pairs - Robert and the devil, into teams - devils and boys (Roberts), one Robert and all the others - devils and etc. In the role of Robert, the kids "called" or "waited" the devil for the numbers to help them with a particular material.
I really liked the suggestion of one of the devil children. He said that when he was a devil, he first wanted to get to know his Robert and then explain to him the mathematical issues, exactly with examples from the things Robert likes or likes to do.
His "Robert" is an athlete and has many medals in racing. He is also interested in cars. He said he had problems with circles. Using this information, the devil linked the circle to the shape of the tires, rims and the shape of some of the medals. He sat down in a chair, grabbed one end of his shawl, handed the other end to Robert, and made him walk around the chair by holding the shawl stretched, and fence for his favorite devil a protected area around the chair. So he tried to explain to him how to draw a circle and what is a radius.
When I leave the children to determine on their own for what they want to meet with the devil, I get information about the material(s) which is (are) difficult for them. Every child experiences satisfaction when he is in the role of the devil of the numbers. Sometimes the Robert children themselves start looking for ways to explain things - they move from one role to another and these are very nice moments of my work.
I'll tell you some of our devilish ideas about figure numbers. The Devil Girls had ideas to draw triangular numbers on their nails, plant flower beds - in each bed the number of flowers would be a different triangular / quadrangle number, decorate cupboards or dishes with points representing different figures, and so on.
The child athlete replaced the coconuts with medals. He said that once he gathers more medals he would invite his classmates at his home. He will arrange the medals like the devil of the numbers from the book arranges the coconuts. He will first explain why they are arranged this way and then will tell about his achievements.
Another child offered to open a store. People could buy things with banknotes which values are triangular numbers.
I intend to execute this idea by organizing a Charity Sale with items made by the children. Every buyer will exchange a real currency with ours and then will go shopping. He will also solve a problem related to representing a number as a sum of triangular numbers.
We played the role of devil IT specialists with my older students. We have created dynamic software with Geogebra to help other students learn different facts about figure numbers. Some of the created files are:
• A puzzles with which small students exercise the finding of face of a rectangle and formulate hypotheses to find the N-th triangle number.
https://ggbm.at/NFfV7RA6
https://ggbm.at/SNS2qQ2d
• A puzzle in which students find dependencies related to the array of triangular numbers and construct square numbers.
https://ggbm.at/jvjPFMWA
Congratulations on choosing these books and thank you for the opportunity to share experience related to their use.

RE: Welcome

2017-04-30T18:40:50Z

Hello. My name is Nelly Stoyanova. I am from Bulgaria and I am a teacher in Mathematics, Informatics and Information Technologies. The book "THE NUMBER DEVIL" provokes many ideas for working with students. I will share some of them at the forum and I hope you will like them. I will be happy to learn about your ideas and will try to accomplish them.

cat3

RE: Share your classroom ideas here

RE: Welcome