Today Room 108 was a Demonstration Math Lab. Mr. Steers and I co-taught a lesson on symmetry for guest teachers. We were also joined by our Math instructional leader and former Clairlea teacher/librarian Susan Pitre. We packed in a lot of learning and the boys and girls were SUPER engaged. Awesome!
We got the party on the go with a symmetry game on the SmartBoard. Students categorized shapes as symmetrical or non-symmetrical by dragging the shapes into their chosen vortex.
Circle of infinite symmetrical lines about to be swallowed into the "Symmetrical" vortex. I've had nightmares where this has happened to me.
Students were presented with a problem to solve. They were asked to design a book cover using pattern blocks. The design had to have at least one line of symmetry. Three pairs of students had their designs brought to the high tech projection tool called Elmo (I'm not making up the name). Using Elmo, their designs were captured on the SmartBoard. Students then had to draw lines of symmetry on their designs using a line tool with their fingers. What learning. What fun!
This group came up with a minimalist design, but the class discovered that it had four lines of symmetry. Vocabulary that came out of today's math class included: congruent, horizontal, vertical, and diagonal.
Symmetry is #1!
