Probability clotheslines, story time and paper folding!

My math students have been busy! The 6th graders have been working with probability while throwing dice and guessing numbers. I strung a string across the room and they hung different possible scenarios depending on their certainty or impossibility of happening. We had "Bronco's win the Superbowl," "Mt. Vesuvius erupts," "Ms. Bertschi will teach Science next year," "Mrs. Watson will move back to Russia," "Ms. Duvall will sew 5 new items in the next year," and many other fun possible and uncertain events. Students had fun pinning the scenarios on the clothesline and enjoyed reading the different scenarios. There was a slight disagreement about the Bronco's winning the Superbowl next year. ;)

My 7th graders have also been busy and diving into geometry for the past several weeks. We were working on finding area and measured one wall of our classroom not forgetting to subtract doors and windows. We also used string to measure a circle to understand a bit more where Pi comes from, then used Pi to calculate the circumference and area in different circles. Next came the Pythagorean Theorem and I decided to read a Math Adventure story for fun! Before I could start reading "What's your angle, Pythagoras?" students asked if they could sit in a circle for the story. Sure, why not! They loved it! 

This week and following ELW (Experiential Learning Week), we are working with nets and will be using them to calculate surface area. Students began with folding different possibilities for cubes to see which ones actually folded into cubes. They did an excellent job of working together as a group to fold their cubes and enjoyed the process! After cube folding, I handed out more nets so students could fold different prisms and pyramids! When they finished, I called a name of a shape and they held it up ready to discuss attributes. After ELW (next week), we will continue to explore how we can use nets to calculate area. One student stated, "Ms. Ramse, I really like your math class and am going to come every day from now on!" Another student replied, "Uh, you kind of have to come every day!" Glad they had fun!